The Touchstone of Fortune Part 20

Hoping to put her right, I told her of the wager at the Leg Tavern, which in my opinion fully explained George's presence on the St. Albans road, but she declared that it was a flimsy excuse, and said she did not want to talk further on the subject.

Knowing that I could not convince her at that time, I bore away from the topic and called her attention to the impropriety of taking dinner unescorted at a public house.

"I know all about it, cousin," she returned, "but a good character is of no value in Whitehall. It is an inc.u.mbrance. As to my conscience, you need have no fear. When I first came to court, I supposed I should encounter dangers. I was mistaken. I am as safe here as I should be in my father's house. All the pitfalls and snares are to be seen by any one who wishes to see them. It is the sleeping spider that catches the fly, not your bold, brazen hunter, clumsily alert."

I did not want to be preaching constantly to Frances, so we talked on other subjects till we reached my uncle's house, where I remained, singing, dancing, and very merry with Frances, Sarah, and Churchill, till we heard the night watch call, "One o'clock and raining!"

Churchill and I slept at Sir Richard's and returned to Whitehall the next morning.

During the following week I went to see Betty frequently under the pretence of wishing to see Hamilton, but she told me (honestly, I believed) that he had left the Old Swan and that she did not know where he was. So I repeated my visits every day, each visit growing longer and I growing fonder. Betty, too, seemed to be looking for my visits with a degree of pleasure that both pleased and grieved me, for with all my longing for the girl, I never lost sight of the fact that if I were the right sort of man, I should not wish to gain her love to an extent that would mean sorrow to her.

If I were the right sort of man? The question has always set me wondering. The man who never doubts that he is the right sort of man may be put down as all bad, though the right sort of man is not necessarily all good.

CHAPTER VII

THE EYE OF THE DRAGON

One morning, a week or more after my visit to my uncle's house, with Frances, she came to my closet in the Wardrobe greatly excited, and told me that a sheriff had come to take her to one of the London courts of law.

"Here is the paper he gave me," she said, handing me a doc.u.ment which proved to be a subpoena. "I have committed no crime, and I can't imagine what it all means."

After examining the subpoena, I explained: "You are wanted merely as a witness before a jury of inquiry engaged in investigating a crime of some sort. It may be Hamilton's fight at the Old Swan, or it may be the Roger Wentworth affair. Perhaps some one is trying to fix that awful crime on Hamilton. But I tell you, Frances, he is innocent."

I had not, at that time, explained to her that Hamilton and Churchill were two hundred yards behind Crofts and his friends when the robbery was committed, having felt that it was just as well not to make Hamilton's innocence too clear.

We of the court considered ourselves exempt from processes of this sort while in the palace. Therefore I carried the paper to the king, whom I found at cards in his closet.

"What is it, Clyde?" asked his Majesty.

For answer, I handed him the subpoena, and when he had glanced over it, he returned it to me, saying:--

"Please tell the sheriff for me that Mistress Jennings will appear before the court of inquiry this afternoon at two o'clock."

"It is a disagreeable business for a lady, your Majesty," I remarked, bowing. "But if it is your desire--"

"Yes, yes, Clyde! Come with me," he interrupted, leading me out of the room to a corridor. "You see it is this way. We of the palace have so frequently set the law at defiance of late that the citizens are beginning to grumble. In this instance I should like to make a great show of compliance. We'll make it easy for your cousin by going with her.

And Clyde, if you will say to the d.u.c.h.ess for me that I should deem it a favor if she and one or more of her ladies will accompany us, I doubt not she will be glad to go."

"But, your Majesty, what has my cousin done that she should be dragged before the courts of law?" I asked, pretending ignorance of the real nature of the summons and hoping to ascertain whether the king knew anything about the present occasion.

I gained the information I wanted when he replied instantly: "Oh, she is not to be tried. She has done nothing. She is called only to be questioned concerning a crime now under investigation." Then hedging quickly, "That is, I suppose such is the purpose of the subpoena."

The king's manner and his evident knowledge of what was going on convinced me that Hamilton was the subject of inquiry, and I greatly feared an effort was being made to charge him with Roger Wentworth's death or to arraign him because of his threats against the king's life.

I was about to leave the king when he stopped me, saying "Please go to my Lady Castlemain's lodging over Holbein's Gate and ask her to go with us down to London. And Clyde, have my barge at the Bowling Green stairs at one o'clock so that we may take our leisure going down the river and still reach the law courts on time. Our punctuality will flatter the city folk."

At one o'clock, according to instructions, I went to the royal barge waiting at Bowling Green stairs, where presently came the king, the d.u.c.h.ess with one of her ladies, Frances, my Lord Clarendon, and my Lady Castlemain, the last named bearing in her arms a young baby. In a barge which was to follow us were several gentlemen of the court and a halfscore of the king's guardsmen. Evidently the occasion was to be in the nature of a frolic; poor Frances to furnish the entertainment.

On thinking it all over, I was convinced that the investigation, whatever it should turn out to be, had been instigated by the king.

When we entered the barge, Frances clung to my hand and sat down beside me, but the king, who was sitting with the d.u.c.h.ess on one hand and Castlemain on the other, beckoned Frances to sit beside him. She went to him reluctantly, and he moved toward the d.u.c.h.ess, making room for Frances between himself and Castlemain. But that fair lady objected and moved up to the king, indicating by a nod that Frances might sit on the spot her Ladyship had vacated.

But the king said, "You are to sit by me, Mistress Jennings."

"She'll do nothing of the sort," exclaimed Castlemain, with an oath.

"She'll sit on the other side of me or in the bottom of the barge, or in the river, I care not which."

"You shall make room, or I'll have you put out of the barge," said the king, displaying a flash of temper.

Immediately a torrent of profanity and piercing screams came from her Ladyship.

"Let any man lay hands on me," she cried, turning to the king, "and this brat of yours goes into the water!"

"Sit down, in G.o.d's name, sit down and have your way," said the king, waving his hand to the man on the wharf to throw the warps aboard.

The d.u.c.h.ess laughed and offered to give her place to Frances, but of course my cousin refused and came back to me.

* * * * *

When we reached the courtroom, we found it filled with men, women, and children, most of them belonging to the lower walks of life and all of them eager to see the king, whom they seemed to know was coming.

As we entered, the High Sheriff, in his gown, rose and cried: "Oyez!

Oyez! His Majesty is now in presence!" Whereupon the audience rose and remained standing till the king left.

We had entered by the public door, the king doubtless wishing to display himself as fully as possible to the people. As we pa.s.sed down the aisle to the bar, I caught the eyes of a man garbed as a Quaker. He wore a thin gray beard, and his white hair hung almost to his shoulders. His bearing and expression were truly sanctimonious, and had the gleam in his eyes been in keeping, I should not have taken a second glance at him. But it was not, so as I came close to him I noticed him carefully and saw that he was observing me. At once I thought of Hamilton, and although I was not at all sure of my ground, I dropped my hat near him, as an excuse for stopping, and, while bending toward him, whispered:--

"Dark spectacles shade the eyes."

If the man was not Hamilton, my remark would mean nothing; if he was, it would give him a valuable hint.

When the king and the d.u.c.h.ess were seated, the judge spoke from the bench, calling the attention of the good people of London to the fact that his gracious Majesty had given to the court information which, it was hoped, would lead to the arrest of the man who had committed the heinous crime of robbing and killing Roger Wentworth on the king's highway. The judge said that his gracious Majesty, loving justice as perhaps no other king of England had ever loved it, had come in person to offer as a witness one of the fairest ladies of the court, by whose testimony it was expected the guilty man might be brought to justice.

During this speech, which was much longer than I have given it, I noticed that the king was restless, and I suspected that, in his heart, his Majesty was cursing the judge for a fool.

When the judge sat down, the Grand Jury was summoned, and in a few minutes the wheels of justice were ready to turn. In proceedings of this nature, there is no prisoner at bar; therefore no one is in court save the crown by its counsel, the purpose being only to obtain information upon which a true bill or indictment may be found against some one suspected of the crime under investigation.

After all was ready, the sheriff escorted Frances to the witness stand, and the judge asked her to place her hand on the Bible. She did so and made oath that she would true answers make to all questions that should be put to her touching her knowledge of the robbery and murder of one Roger Wentworth.

When she had made oath, the king's counsel said: "You may state to the court whether you were acquainted with one Roger Wentworth, a tanner of Sundridge, during his life." To which question Frances answered that she had known Roger since her childhood.

The king's counsel then put several preliminary questions which led up to the time of Roger's murder, after which he asked:--

"You may state to the court whether you saw the faces of any of the highwaymen."