The Lady of Loyalty House Part 18

"Why, 'tis not so long ago Master Paul Hungerford told me you were a very Croesus."

Master Peter clinched and unclinched his h.o.r.n.y hands as if he were coming to grips with his traducer.

"Master Hungerford told you that? I would I had my hands knotted about his lying throat. He that is as rich as a Jew, that has a treasure of gold plate in his sideboard that would keep the King in arms and men for a month of Sundays, he so to slander my poverty."

Brilliana heaved a sympathetic sigh.

"I fear he is but a bad man. Do you think he cherishes the King's cause?"

Master Peter flamed with virtuous indignation.

"He, the black heart! Never think it. He is a rank Parliament scoundrel and worships Mr. Pym."

"Is it so?" cried Brilliana. "A rebel, a renegade. Why, now, Master Rainham, I see a pretty piece of loyal work for you."

Master Peter glowered at her suspiciously.

"Anything for you, anything for the King; except give what I have none of--money."

"In the King's name," said Brilliana, heroically, "go forth and ransack this rebellious gentleman's house for arms."

Master Peter snorted sceptically.

"Arms! I think he hath none but an old rusty fire-lock and a breast and back that have seen better days."

Brilliana beamed on him, a yielding sphinx.

"But then, supposing you should pick up some plate on the way, some gold plate by chance--"

Master Peter rubbed his grimy hands.

"Why, it were fine," he admitted, gleefully; then added, with cunning, "Are you sure he is a Roundhead?"

"I am very sure he is your enemy," Brilliana answered, sharply, "for he makes you his daily j.a.pe."

The ugly boar-head looked uglier as it growled:

"Does he, the dog! I'd j.a.pe him if I gad my two hands upon him."

"Why," Brilliana a.s.serted, now in the full tide of make-believe, "if you are a King's man, he will be of the other side, he hates you so.

I cannot think how you have earned his hatred, unless, indeed--" and she broke off suddenly and looked aside. Halfman would have given a shilling for a lonely place to laugh his fill in.

"Well, madam, well?" Master Rainham questioned, eagerly.

Brilliana faltered her answer.

"--unless he believes you stand higher in the graces of a certain lady than he can ever hope to stand."

Master Rainham's smile gave Halfman the feel of goose-flesh.

Brilliana's face was, happily, averted.

"Madam, a.s.sure me 'tis so," grunted boar's-head.

"I must not say much," Brilliana protested, "no more than this, that in this enterprise, if you but achieve it, you will win great credit with the King at no cost to yourself, you spoil a rival, and--but this is very private--you will give great pleasure to that same nameless lady."

Master Peter shouted, "Why, then, all's well. I will pick him as clean as a whistle." Again caution overcrowded cheer. "But I must pick my time, look you."

On this, Brilliana became emphatic.

"No time like the present. It is to my certain knowledge that Master Paul is away from home to-day." Again she looked to Halfman for support, and again Halfman yielded it blithely.

"Ay, he has gone hawking," he declared; "he will not be home this great while."

Halfman's confirmation decided Master Peter.

"Why, I go at once. When the cat's away--! I will be back within the hour."

"Then," said Brilliana, "pray you go to the house and gather in my name from the servants' hall such men as you may need for your enterprise. Use despatch, for indeed I long for your return."

Master Peter paid her what he believed to be a courtly bow.

"That same nameless lady shall praise me," he chuckled, and, turning, made for the house with all speed. When they were alone, Brilliana and Halfman looked at each other with the mirth of children who have successfully raided an orchard.

"I have netted them," Brilliana said. "If it do but happen pat, we shall have served the King and punished two cozening faint-hearts.

For the best of it is that neither can complain. Each is neck-high in the mire of lies, each has plundered the other, and must be dumb for shame of his knavery."

"It will be brave to spy their faces," Halfman commented, "when they smell out the snare."

"Look to it," Brilliana suggested, "that they be kept apart when they come here. The jest must not spoil. How these old hawks will fly at each other when we unhood them."

"Trust me, lady," said Halfman. "I have been a play-actor and know how to stage a pair of gabies to the show."

He saluted her and made to depart. She had learned to like his company through the long days of siege, and this dull day of quiet she felt lonely. Moreover, she was grateful to him for having helped her so well in her plot against the n.i.g.g.ards.

"Come again when you have taken order for this," she said. "There is still much to do, much to think for."

The man saluted anew, intoxicated with pleasure. He knew that she liked his company, and whatever was well in him burgeoned at the knowledge. His play-actor pa.s.sion had bettered him, if it had not accomplished the impossible and trans.m.u.ted the pirate of body into the pure of soul. It would not be true to say that he never thought lewdly of her; he would have thought lewdly of an angel or a vestal maid; that was ingrain in the composition of the man; but he thought well of her as he had never thought well of women before since he first scorched his stripling's fingers, and he would have killed twenty men to keep her from hearing a foul word. Sometimes when he talked with her, ever in his chastened part of the rough old soldier, he laughed in his sleeve at the difference between part and true man.

The nut-hook humor of it was that both were realities, or, perhaps, that neither were realities.

As he quitted the pleasaunce he countered Mistress Tiffany, and saw at a distance, standing by the laurels, a foppish, many-colored, portly personage negligently twirling a long staff. Halfman guessed the name, grinned, and went on his business. Tiffany burst wellnigh breathless into her lady's presence.

"My lady," she gasped, "here is Sir Blaise Mickleton, who entreats the honor to speak with you."

Brilliana's face darkened for a moment, for she bore no kindness just then to the laggard in war. Then her face cleared again.

"Admit him," she said. "He will divert me for want of a better."

Back ran Tiffany to where the visitor lingered, bade him enter the pleasaunce, where he would find her mistress, and having delivered her errand, ran again to the house, leaving him to his adventure.