When Knighthood Was in Flower Part 25

Both sides shouted, "Who comes there?" to which there was a simultaneous and eager answer, "A friend," and each party pa.s.sed its own way, only too glad to be rid of the other. Mary's sigh of relief could be heard above even the wind and the owls, and her heart beat as if it had a task to finish within a certain time.

After this they rode on as rapidly as they dared, and about midnight arrived at the inn where the relay of horses was awaiting them.

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The inn was a rambling old thatched-roofed structure, half mud, half wood, and all filth. There are many inns in England that are tidy enough, but this one was a little off the main road--selected for that reason--and the uncleanness was not the least of Mary's trials that hard night. She had not tasted food since noon, and felt the keen hunger natural to youth and health such as hers, after twelve hours of fasting and eight hours of riding. Her appet.i.te soon overcame her repugnance, and she ate, with a zest that was new to her, the humblest fare that had ever pa.s.sed her lips. One often misses the zest of life's joys by having too much of them. One must want a thing before it can be appreciated.

A hard ride of five hours brought our travelers to Bath, which place they rode around just as the sun began to gild the tile roofs and steeples, and another hour brought them to Bristol.

The ship was to sail at sunrise, but as the wind had died out with the night, there was no danger of its sailing without them. Soon the gates opened, and the party rode to the Bow and String, where Brandon had left their chests. The men were then paid off; quick sale was made of the horses; breakfast was served, and they started for the wharf, with their chests following in the hands of four porters.

A boat soon took them aboard the Royal Hind, and now it looked as if their daring scheme, so full of improbability as to seem impossible, had really come to a successful issue.

From the beginning, I think, it had never occurred to Mary to doubt the result. There had never been with her even a suggestion of possible failure, unless it was that evening in our room, when, prompted by her startled modesty, she had said she could not bear for us to see her in the trunk hose. Now that fruition seemed about to crown her hopes she was happy to her heart's core; and when once to herself wept for sheer joy. It is little wonder she was happy. She was leaving behind no one whom she loved excepting Jane, and perhaps, me.

No father nor mother; only a sister whom she barely knew, and a brother whose treatment of her had turned her heart against him. She was also fleeing with the one man in all the world for her, and from a marriage that was literally worse than death.

Brandon, on the other hand, had always had more desire than hope. The many chances against success had forced upon him a haunting sense of certain failure, which, one would think, should have left him now. It did not, however, and even when on shipboard, with a score of men at the windla.s.s ready to heave anchor at the first breath of wind, it was as strong as when Mary first proposed their flight, sitting in the window on his great cloak. Such were their opposite positions. Both were without doubt, but with this difference; Mary had never doubted success; Brandon never doubted failure. He had a keen a.n.a.lytical faculty that gave him truthfully the chances for and against, and, in this case, they were overwhelmingly unfavorable. Such hope as he had been able to distil out of his desire was sadly dampened by an ever-present premonition of failure, which he could not entirely throw off. Too keen an insight for the truth often stands in a man's way, and too clear a view of an overwhelming obstacle is apt to paralyze effort. Hope must always be behind a hearty endeavor.

Our travelers were, of course, greatly in need of rest; so Mary went to her room, and Brandon took a berth in the cabin set apart for the gentlemen.

They had both paid for their pa.s.sage, although they had enlisted and were part of the ship's company. They were not expected to do sailor's work, but would be called upon in case of fighting to do their part at that. Mary was probably as good a fighter, in her own way, as one could find in a long journey, but how she was to do her part with sword and buckler Brandon did not know. That, however, was a bridge to be crossed when they should come to it.

They had gone aboard about seven o'clock, and Brandon hoped the ship would be well down Bristol channel before he should leave his berth.

But the wind that had filled Mary's jack-boots with rain and had howled so dismally all night long would not stir, now that it was wanted. Noon came, yet no wind, and the sun shone as placidly as if Captain Charles Brandon were not fuming with impatience on the p.o.o.p of the Royal Hind. Three o'clock and no wind. The captain said it would come with night, but sundown was almost at hand and no wind yet.

Brandon knew this meant failure if it held a little longer, for he was certain the king, with Wolsey's help, would long since have guessed the truth.

Brandon had not seen the princess since morning, and the delicacy he felt about going to her cabin made the situation somewhat difficult.

After putting it off from hour to hour in hope that she would appear of her own accord, he at last knocked at her door, and, of course, found the lady in trouble.

The thought of the princess going on deck caused a sinking at his heart every time it came, as he felt that it was almost impossible to conceal her ident.i.ty. He had not seen her in her new male attire, for when she threw off her riding habit on meeting him the night before, he had intentionally busied himself about the horses, and saw her only after the great cloak covered her as a gown. He felt that however well her garments might conceal her form, no man on earth ever had such beauty in his face as her transcendent eyes, rose-tinted cheeks, and coral lips, with their cl.u.s.ter of dimples; and his heart sank at the prospect. She might hold out for a while with a straight face, but when the smiles should come--it were just as well to hang a placard about her neck: "This is a woman." The tell-tale dimples would be worse than Jane for outspoken, untimely truthfulness and trouble-provoking candor.

Upon entering, Brandon found Mary wrestling with the problem of her complicated male attire; the most beautiful picture of puzzled distress imaginable. The port was open and showed her rosy as the morn when she looked up at him. The jack-boots were in a corner, and her little feet seemed to put up a protest all their own, against going into them, that ought to have softened every peg. She looked up at Brandon with a half-hearted smile, and then threw her arms about his neck and sobbed like the child that she was.

"Do you regret coming, Lady Mary?" asked Brandon, who, now that she was alone with him, felt that he must take no advantage of the fact to be familiar.

"No! no! not for one moment; I am glad--only too glad. But why do you call me 'Lady'? You used to call me 'Mary.'"

"I don't know; perhaps because you are alone."

"Ah! that is good of you; but you need not be quite so respectful."

The matter was settled by mute but satisfactory arbitration, and Brandon continued: "You must make yourself ready to go on deck. It will be hard, but it must be done."

He helped her with the heavy jack-boots and handed her the rain-stained slouch hat which she put on, and stood a complete man ready for the deck--that is, as complete as could be evolved from her utter femininity.

When Brandon looked her over, all hope went out of him. It seemed that every change of dress only added to her bewitching beauty by showing it in a new phase.

"It will never do; there is no disguising you. What is it that despite everything shows so unmistakably feminine? What shall we do? I have it; you shall remain here under the pretense of illness until we are well at sea, and then I will tell the captain all. It is too bad; and yet I would not have you one whit less a woman for all the world. A man loves a woman who is so thoroughly womanly that nothing can hide it."

Mary was pleased at his flattery, but disappointed at the failure in herself. She had thought that surely these garments would make a man of her in which the keenest eye could not detect a flaw.

They were discussing the matter when a knock came at the door with the cry, "All hands on deck for inspection." Inspection! Jesu! Mary would not safely endure it a minute. Brandon left her at once and went to the captain.

"My lord is ill, and begs to be excused from deck inspection," he said.

Bradhurst, a surly old half pirate of the saltiest pattern, answered: "Ill? Then he had better go ash.o.r.e as soon as possible. I will refund his money. We cannot make a hospital out of the ship. If his lordship is too ill to stand inspection, see that he goes ash.o.r.e at once."

This last was addressed to one of the ship's officers, who answered with the usual "Aye, aye, sir," and started for Mary's cabin.

That was worse than ever; and Brandon quickly said he would have his lordship up at once. He then returned to Mary, and after buckling on her sword and belt they went on deck and climbed up the p.o.o.p ladder to take their places with those ent.i.tled to stand aft.

Brandon has often told me since that it was as much as he could do to keep back the tears when he saw Mary's wonderful effort to appear manly. It was both comical and pathetic. She was a princess to whom all the world bowed down, yet that did not help her here. After all she was only a girl, timid and fearful, following at Brandon's heels; frightened lest she should get out of arm's reach of him among those rough men, and longing with all her heart to take his hand for moral as well as physical support. It must have been both laughable and pathetic in the extreme. That miserable sword persisted in tripping her, and the jack-boots, so much too large, evinced an alarming tendency to slip off with every step. How insane we all were not to have foreseen this from the very beginning. It must have been a unique figure she presented climbing up the steps at Brandon's heels, jack-boots and all. So unique was it that the sailors working in the ship's waist stopped their tasks to stare in wonderment, and the gentlemen on the p.o.o.p made no effort to hide their amus.e.m.e.nt. Old Bradhurst stepped up to her.

"I hope your lordship is feeling better;" and then, surveying her from head to foot, with a broad grin on his features, "I declare, you look the picture of health, if I ever saw it. How old are you?"

Mary quickly responded, "Fourteen years."

"Fourteen," returned Bradhurst: "well, I don't think you will shed much blood. You look more like a deuced handsome girl than any man I ever saw." At this the men all laughed, and were very impertinent in the free and easy manner of such gentry, most of whom were professional adventurers, with every finer sense dulled and debased by years of vice.

These fellows, half of them tipsy, now gathered about Mary to inspect her personally, each on his own account. Their looks and conduct were very disconcerting, but they did nothing insulting until one fellow gave her a slap on the back, accompanying it by an indecent remark.

Brandon tried to pay no attention to them, but this was too much, so he lifted his arm and knocked the fellow off the p.o.o.p into the waist.

The man was back in a moment, and swords were soon drawn and clicking away at a great rate. The contest was brief, however, as the fellow was no sort of match for Brandon, who, with his old trick, quickly twisted his adversary's sword out of his grasp, and with a flash of his own blade flung it into the sea. The other men were now talking together at a little distance in whispers, and in a moment one drunken brute shouted: "It is no man; it is a woman; let us see more of her."

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Before Brandon could interfere, the fellow had unbuckled Mary's doublet at the throat, and with a jerk, had torn it half off, carrying away the sleeve and exposing Mary's shoulder, almost throwing her to the deck.

He waved his trophy on high, but his triumph was short-lived, for almost instantly it fell to the deck, and with it the offending hand severed at the wrist by Brandon's sword. Three or four friends of the wounded man rushed upon Brandon; whereupon Mary screamed and began to weep, which of course told the whole story.

A great laugh went up, and instantly a general fight began. Several of the gentlemen, seeing Brandon attacked by such odds, took up his defense, and within twenty seconds all were on one side or the other, every mother's son of them fighting away like mad.

You see how quickly and completely one woman without the slightest act on her part, except a modest effort to be let alone, had set the whole company by the ears, cutting and slashing away at each other like very devils. The s.e.x must generate mischief in some unknown manner, and throw it off, as the sun throws off its heat. However, Jane is an exception to that rule--if it is a rule.

The officers soon put a stop to this lively little fight, and took Brandon and Mary, who was weeping as any right-minded woman would, down into the cabin for consultation.

With a great oath Bradhurst exclaimed: "It is plain enough that you have brought a girl on board under false colors, and you may as well make ready to put her ash.o.r.e. You see what she has already done--a hand lost to one man and wounds for twenty others--and she was on deck less than five minutes. Heart of G.o.d! At that rate she would have the ship at the bottom of Davy Jones's locker before we could sail half down the channel."

"It was not my fault," sobbed Mary, her eyes flashing fire; "I did nothing; all I wanted was to be left alone; but those brutes of men--you shall pay for this; remember what I say. Did you expect Captain Brandon to stand back and not defend me, when that wretch was tearing my garments off?"

"Captain Brandon, did you say?" asked Bradhurst, with his hat off instantly.

"Yes," answered that individual. "I shipped under an a.s.sumed name, for various reasons, and desire not to be known. You will do well to keep my secret."

"Do I understand that you are Master Charles Brandon, the king's friend?" asked Bradhurst.

"I am," was the answer.

"Then, sir, I must ask your pardon for the way you have been treated.

We, of course, could not know it, but a man must expect trouble when he attaches himself to a woman." It is a wonder the flashes from Mary's eyes did not strike the old sea-dog dead. He, however, did not see them, and went on: "We are more than anxious that so valiant a knight as Sir Charles Brandon should go with us, and hope your reception will not drive you back, but as to the lady--you see already the result of her presence, and much as we want you, we cannot take her. Aside from the general trouble which a woman takes with her everywhere"--Mary would not even look at the creature--"on shipboard there is another and greater objection. It is said, you know, among sailors, that a woman on board draws bad luck to certain sorts of ships, and every sailor would desert, before we could weigh anchor, if it were known this lady was to go with us. Should they find it out in mid-ocean, a mutiny would be sure to follow, and G.o.d only knows what would happen. For her sake, if for no other reason, take her ash.o.r.e at once."