THE INCIDENT OF THE WOLF-HOUND
The eye at the window was the hunchback's, who was perched upon the
top of a boulder, which he had rolled to the side of the building
for the purpose of enabling him to see within. His attitude was as
that of a spider awaiting its victim, and betrayed his anticipation
of a pleasurable event to come. If Sir James could have witnessed
his brother's unaccountable demeanor, he would doubtless have been
convinced of the truth of a rumor that was commonly traded among his
men to the effect that Zenas was of unsound mind, and a menace to his
ambitious plans.
The tottering of Zenas's reason was directly due to the circumstance
of his having been Sir James's intimate confederate in one of the most
brilliant and daring conspiracies in a time when conspiracies were
among the chief products of England's soil. The plot in question
had been conceived in Tyrrell's brain at the time when he had been
commissioned by Richard III to make away with his two nephews in the
room in which they were then imprisoned in the Tower; and involved
the secret transportation of the young princes to a place of safety
till such time as a sufficiently armed force could be gathered to set
the older of the two upon the throne. That one of the boy dukes was
actually murdered and only one so transported, Sir James attributed to
the egregious blunder or willful defection of one Dighton, his groom,
who was bribed handsomely by Tyrrell to assist him in his gigantic
enterprise. Dighton had suffered a summary death as the penalty of
his fault. Zenas, garbed in the habit of a Sister of the Faith, had
received into his charge in one of the by-ways of London a fair-haired
young girl, who was the escaped prince in disguise. Together they
had traveled from hamlet to hamlet till they had come to the haven
of refuge prepared for them in Scotland. From whence he had been so
indiscreet as to return to England and hint, while in his cups, of the
incubation of a vast uprising in the North, in consequence of which
he had been seized, thrown into the torture chamber, and released
only after he had been blinded in one eye and reduced to a repulsive
caricature of his former self. While he had incurred Sir James's stern
displeasure because of his indiscretion, he had also won his highest
regard and confidence because of his stubborn refusal to divulge a
single secret through the whole of his agonized sufferings.
Now, as Zenas patiently maintained his post upon the top of the
boulder, he kept up an almost incessant mumbling. "I'll keep guard
over him," he was saying. "Aye--I'll see that no harm comes to our
_honorable_ guest!" whereupon he would smile craftily and press his
face more closely to the window. "They know not--ha, ha! not one of
them hath divined that it was I--I, Zenas, the detestable hunchback,
who put the quietus to the young prince. Slow poison--that's the thing.
_Slow poison!_ I'll teach them to steal from me the affections of my
beloved and noble brother. Zenas, the crookback, will teach them! Slow
poison put an end to the last, and now 'twill be Demon's turn to finish
this one. At him, good Demon! _At him, sir!_" he concluded, with a
sibilant hiss that penetrated every corner of the interior of the room.
It was just at this moment that Sir Richard awakened with a sudden and
violent start. During the interval of several seconds he remained in
a sort of drowsy stupor, with his gaze fixed upon the curling flames.
Doubtless from that instinct that gives warning of impending peril, he
set his first sentient glance upon the forbidding beast lying before
him upon the hearth. The hound's red eyeballs were glaring straight
into his own. In the dim firelight he could see that its hair was
bristling over its entire savage body, and that slowly and with deadly
menace the brute was gathering its huge paws beneath it and assuming
a crouching posture. Feeling certain that the slightest perceptible
movement upon his part would precipitate the threatened spring, the
young knight's fingers, under cover of the table, crept warily toward
his sword-hilt. Distinctly he could hear the tap--tap--tapping of the
raindrops as they splashed upon the ground from off the eaves. What,
with the deathlike quiet, the red eyeballs and gleaming fangs of the
hound, and the uncanniness of it all, it is a matter of wonderment
that Sir Richard maintained his faculties to the degree that he did.
Inch by inch his hand neared the familiar point where his sword-hilt
should have been. Groping beyond, however, it encountered but an empty
scabbard. His blade was gone!
A crooked mouth beneath the malevolent eye at the window smiled
exultingly.
As the young knight started in a maze of utter bewilderment upon
discovering his loss, the hound, straight and true as an arrow sped
from a cross-bow, sprang full at his unprotected throat. With a light
bound Sir Richard gained the top of the bench, and the powerful jaws
of the bloodthirsty brute closed upon his greaves at the precise point
where his unprotected throat had been but the instant before. It had
been a right lucky stroke for him when he had bestowed a second thought
to the matter of unlocking his stout leg-pieces.
Discovering that it could inflict no hurt upon its enemy at that point,
and not fancying, in all likelihood, the grating of the tough steel
against its teeth, the hound released its hold, gave back, and now,
with jaws afoam, and giving tongue the while to deep, fierce growls,
it crouched low upon the hearth and gathered its body for another
spring. By this time Sir Richard was aware of the circumstance that
he was without a weapon of any description, as his dagger had been
removed with his baldric, which had evidently been unbuckled from
off his shoulder during his sleep. Quick as a flash the young knight
swept up one of his heavy metal gauntlets from off the top of the
table. Again good fortune was with him, for it turned out to fit upon
his right hand. It was but the work of a moment to adjust it, and he
met the brute's second leap with a blow set fair between its eyes and
delivered with every ounce of weight and strength at his command. After
the manner of a doe pierced through by a shaft in mid-leap the hound
crashed lifeless to the floor, with a great spout of blood issuing from
its mouth and nostrils.
The burning eye at the window withdrew its gaze. The crooked lips, so
lately smiling, were now muttering curse upon curse to the sighing
winds.
"Hoa! Well, by my soul, sir knight! I am, indeed, happily come to
witness a blow so true and mightily delivered."
The voice was that of the inn-keeper, and sounded out of the darkness
beyond the semi-circle of wavering light shed by the now expiring fire.
As Sir Richard leapt from off the bench to the floor, Tyrrell strode
into the zone of illumination and, stooping, hung above the still
quivering body of the dying hound. For quite a space he remained thus,
as though graven in stone, with the gentle raindrops tap-tapping
outside for an accompaniment.
"Knowest thou, sir knight," he observed at length, "that thou art the
very first successfully to withstand the onslaught of this savage
brute?" Tyrrell straightened up, folded his arms, and touched the dead
hound lightly with the point of his foot. "Methought," said he, "that
Demon was the nearest thing to me upon earth, and, mayhap, the dearest.
Like me, sir, he was savage, cruel, and unrelenting; and, like me,
expatriated by his kind."
The deep cadence of the inn-keeper's voice, the knitting of his brows,
and a slight, mournful drooping of his shoulders betrayed to the young
knight that his host was touched with a genuine sorrow. Filled ever
with a generous-spirited goodwill, he felt himself entertaining a sense
of regret for the deed that he had been compelled to do.
"In very truth it grieves me," said he, "that necessity bade me to set
a period to a life that you held so precious. I can, good sir, but make
offering of reparation in the way of gold."
Tyrrell turned toward the young knight and smiled sadly.
"Gold?" he softly answered. "It doubts me much whether all the gold
in Christian England could salve the wound made by the death of this
hound. An outcast, sir knight, he came to me, an outcast. I took him
in and suffered him to tarry here till he grew kindred to my every
wish, and the very manner of my likes and dislikes. As I am, noble
sir, he was a bitter misanthrope, and would permit none, besides me,
to approach him but Zenas, my unfortunate brother." He paused in his
speech, regarding Sir Richard intently. As was habitual with this
inimitable conspirator, he was but playing a part. If he had it
in mind thereby to win his way to Sir Richard's sympathies, he was
succeeding admirably.
"Whilst thou wert sleeping," he resumed at the proper moment, "I caused
thy sword and baldric to be removed, so that thy rest might forsooth
give thee a greater measure of comfort. I likewise laid command upon
Zenas to stand guard over thy slumbers. Much sorrow doth it give me
that he should have left thee without the protection of his presence
whilst I was absent. But, marry, noble knight, the deed can now no more
be recalled than can the sped shaft be returned from mid-flight to the
string."
From top to toe Tyrrell was habited in somber black; and, as he talked,
his lank body loomed anon through the half-circle of flickering
light, and then would be blotted out in the deep shadows beyond, as
he continued to pace slowly back and forth before the chimney. To the
imaginative Sir Richard's mind it recalled a play that he had once
witnessed with Henry and his court in London. In it there had been
an actor who had affected to play the part of the devil; and who had
appeared suddenly, and then as suddenly vanished, in a manner designed
to appear miraculous.
"Though, in very truth," decided the young knight, "he did not resemble
that grisly character one half so much as my mysterious landlord."
The scene in which Sir Richard was playing an involuntary part brought
back to him the many evil tales that had been dinned into his ears
since coming to Scotland of this same Red Tavern, together with a
vivid recollection of the reported fate of the unwary, who, through
any misadventure, chanced to seek the hospitality of its shelter. A
dozen times it had been upon the tip of his tongue to make mention of
these rumors, but the words persisted in halting upon the threshold
of utterance. In the light of the reality and substance of his
surroundings they appeared as nothing more than weirdly fantastic
creations, or ridiculous superstitions, and as such he did his utmost
to dismiss them from his mind.
He was just meditating some appropriate subject of conversation by
which the prolonged and somewhat uncomfortable silence might be
interrupted, when the hunchback came into the room, bearing upon his
back a billet of wood that was vastly greater in length and girth than
he.
"Dost know, Zenas," said Tyrrell sternly, "that thou hast committed a
most grievous fault in not remaining to stand watch over our honored
guest? Where hast thou been?"
"I did but go without to fetch this log. The night hath grown cold, and
I was but bethinking me of the sir knight's comfort," Zenas explained.
"'Tis an ill excuse, I tell thee, Zenas. Prithee bestow the log upon
the fire. Then bring in a torch, and a mattock and spade. We will bury
at once the body of yonder hound."
Arching his brows the dwarf looked toward his brother, toward Richard,
and then upon the body of the hound.
"But he does but sleep, good brother," he said, depositing the log
amidst a shower of sparks within the fireplace.
"Aye, 'tis true he sleeps," replied Tyrrell. "And a sleep, Zenas,
from which none shall again awaken him. Our good knight yonder of the
wondrous thews, dealt him a buffet that would have felled the stoutest
ox in broad Scotland. Methinks it might e'en have staggered a Papist
Bull, with such a hearty goodwill was it delivered."
Going to the side of the hound, the hunchback bent above it, fondled
the massive head and shook the fast stiffening paws. Then, with a
furtive look toward his brother, who happened to be unobservant of
his actions, he shot a black look of malignant hate in Sir Richard's
direction.
"And wilt thou suffer this----"
With a finger upon his lips Tyrrell warned Zenas to instant silence.
Then, leading him toward the outer door, he talked earnestly with him
for several minutes. During a pause in their animated conversation the
hunchback stooped and peered at the young knight in something of an odd
manner. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he took his way without
further ado through the door.
In a little while he returned, carrying a gnarl of pine wood, which
he set to blazing at the fire. Thus did Tyrrell, in a most respectful
manner, beg Sir Richard to carry, whilst he and Zenas, he said, would
drag out the carcass of the hound and make ready its grave.
"'Twould be better that thy brother should bear the light," said Sir
Richard. "I'll lend thee a hand to the carrying of the hound, and then
wield either the mattock or the spade."
"Tut, tut! Of the two, dost think thou art the stronger?" queried the
hunchback sharply, addressing himself to Sir Richard for the first
time. "Then," he added, "let me show thee."
Unceremoniously thrusting the torch within the young knight's hand he
lifted a heavy iron bar standing against the chimney. With but little
more effort, apparently, than one would have bestowed upon the breaking
of a twig he thereupon bent it fair double across his knee. Tossing
aside the twisted rod he looked into Sir Richard's eyes and smiled.
Rather, it was a mirthless leer, cunning, cruel, menacing. The young
knight easily gathered that between Zenas and himself there remained
yet an unsettled score.
"Have done with this childish vaunting of thy strength," said Tyrrell.
"An thou wilt but expend thy energies to the task in hand, 'twill soon
be done."
"But, can our honored guest be of a mind to exchange me a buffet, good
my brother, I should be remiss in the matter of common courtesy did I
not stand ready to favor him," returned Zenas.
"Come, come!" impatiently exclaimed Tyrrell, allowing Sir Richard no
opportunity of answering the implied challenge. "Let us have done at
once with the burial of poor Demon."
He and his brother then led the way outside, carrying between them the
body of the hound. Sir Richard followed them to where they laid it down
at the foot of the jagged rock that, in the daylight, could be seen at
a great distance along the roadway. By this hour the night had turned
keen, as nights are wont to do along the Highlands, and as he stood
idly by watching the inn-keeper and the hunchback busily plying spade
and mattock, he grew uncomfortably sensible of the increasing cold,
which seemed to set its chill touch upon his very bones.
At rare intervals the pale disc of the moon could be vaguely
distinguished when one of the thinner clouds scudded across its face.
But when the heavier clouds rolled beneath it, the land was blotted out
in deepest darkness, which the splotch of light shed by the wavering
torch served well to accentuate.
Fantastic shadows wove themselves about the grave-diggers' feet.
These, as they rippled away, grew to tremendous proportions as they
merged with the circle of gloom that hemmed them in after the manner
of an ebon wall. It was during this dismal half-hour, more than ever
after, that Sir Richard missed the jovial companionship of poor
Belwiggar. The thought came to him that he was a being apart, who had
been set down there alone in a mystic environment, and, willy-nilly,
his mind again became tenanted with calamitous forebodings. He fair
ached again to stretch his legs before the fire, and hailed with
unmingled delight the moment when the inn-keeper and his brother
clambered from out the grave and lowered the hound within.
It was as they were heaving back the loosened earth that he heard
a faint, clear sound steal out upon the silence of the night. It
seemed to him as the sound of a maiden's voice released in song. He
was straining eagerly to catch the next sweet, quivering note when
Tyrrell's deep voice broke suddenly into an English war song, and with
a tuneful lilt that came far from appealing unpleasantly to the ear.
Moreover, with such a hearty goodwill did he sing it that the echoes
of the resonant notes were flung reverberating far across the plain.
So unexpected was this occurrence, and so foreign did it seem to
the inn-keeper's melancholy character, that Sir Richard was no less
startled than surprised. When the young knight turned toward his host
he discovered that grim individual engaged in shoveling great clods of
earth into the grave, and unconcernedly timing each movement of his
body in a rhythmical beat with his song.
Not until the last bit of clay had been firmly tamped above the hound,
and they had started for the tavern door, did he for a moment relax his
stentorian singing.
"Didst thou not hear that sound as of a woman's voice?" Sir Richard
made bold to inquire as they were passing indoors.
"Not I," Tyrrell brusquely replied. "For long, sir knight, my ears hath
grown accustomed to the plaint of bird and beast, and the shrieking of
the wraiths of shipwrecked mariners along the coast. An I had heard a
sound, I should, belike, have attributed it to one of these. Zenas,"
he pursued, thus dismissing the subject of the young knight's inquiry,
"look well to our guest's steed for the night. After thou hast done,
return and conduct the good knight to his bed."
Turning toward Sir Richard as the hunchback took himself from the room,
Tyrrell, linking within the young knight's arm his own, led him toward
the comfortable warmth of the fire.
"Thou hast marked, I know, the shattered form of my brother," he said
sadly, as they seated themselves together beside the table. "'Tis
what remains of the cursed rack and wheel. 'Tis near beyond belief
that Zenas was once as supple and straight as either thou or I. And
this good body, too, Sir Richard" (the young knight started at the
utterance of his name), "they would have drawn, twisted and maimed
like unto his had I not defeated their evil purposes by fleeing the
borders of my beloved country. God's direst curse rest upon them--dead
and living--one and all!" He paused for some moments, looking gloomily
into the fire. "Most humbly do I crave thy pardon for this unseemly
display of emotion, sir knight," he added, "and permit me to requite
thy forgiveness by setting before thee another stoup of wine. 'Twill
certes not come amiss after thy prolonged stay in the crisp air."
He arose from the table accordingly, opened a cupboard upon the farther
side of the chimney and took from a shelf the wine, which he set before
his guest. As he was making fast the door, Sir Richard noted within
the cupboard's shadowy depths the bright points of reflection against
pieces of steel harness--swords, battle-axes, and shields.
"No doubt thou art deliberating now within thy mind," Tyrrell resumed,
again seating himself, "as to the manner, Sir Richard, in which I came
upon thy name?"
Abruptly pausing, he gazed reflectively for quite a space upon the
young knight's puzzled countenance.
"Know then," said he, "that as thou wert sleeping, thy helmet rested
there upon the table. The light of yon blaze shone full upon thy name
and thy armorial bearings, which thou seest fit to carry within that
safe receptacle."
Sir Richard flushed to his temples. He tried his best, despite his
embarrassment, to answer in an indifferent manner.
"Gramercy for thy caution, good my landlord," he returned, with a
careless smile; "and hereafter I shall keep that receptacle upon my
foolish noddle, where, i' faith, 'twill be safe from prying eyes."
"From me, sir knight, thou hast no cause to fear," Tyrrell hastened to
assure his guest. "It may even transpire that the momentary relaxation
of thy caution hath earned for thee a friend. Mayhap, a friend in
need--who knows?"
"In need of nothing at present above a restful pillow, a roof, and a
bite to eat before I fare away in the morning," replied Sir Richard.
"Ah--yea, yea! Art thou so fortunate, sir knight, as to be making
thy lonely pilgrimage upon matters of state? or art merely seeking
lightsome pleasures, as is the manner of many a young court buck?"
"As for making my pilgrimage alone, sir, 'tis the fault of an evil
accident that befell but this very day. Till he was foully murdered
not many leagues from here, I had, for attendant, a squire as faithful
and brave as any in England, mauger the fact that he was a trifle weak
at sword-play. Give him in hand a battle-axe, though, and he would
have cleaved through the stoutest wrought bonnet in all Scotland. Poor
Belwiggar! God rest his bones, say I. Concerning thy inquiry as to my
mission, sir, I am not free to answer," concluded Sir Richard.
"Then, an it be not a further dire impertinence, good sir knight,"
persisted Tyrrell, "lesson me from whom thou hast thy cognizance?
Marry, I, who bethought me acquainted with every scroll in England,
know thine not at all."
"From whom else but my good sovereign," Sir Richard replied. "By his
royal command did the College of Heralds issue it. Thus much do I
please to tell thee. Of my parentage I can lesson thee naught. My
progenitors I have never seen, never known. That I am alive, well, and
the free subject of a generous and noble king is sufficient for me,
sir; and, by my good sword, must be sufficient for all to whom I am
known."
"'Tis well and bravely said," the inn-keeper replied. "But more upon
this subject at a later time, my dear Sir Richard. The night doth grow
apace, and here cometh Zenas, who is now ready to conduct thee to thy
couch." Upon which he arose and bade the young knight a kindly and
respectful good-night.
Bearing a rush-light, the hunchback led Sir Richard up a narrow
stairway to a room immediately above the one he had just quitted.
Bidding his sour visaged guide to set the basin, in which burned the
rush-light, in the center of the floor, he bespoke for him a peaceful
rest and dismissed him from his chamber. Zenas, answering never a word,
backed toward the door. Then, from its threshold, he dropped a curtsey
that would have made a fitting obeisance to a monarch, after which he
silently took himself off.
The room in which the young knight now found himself was of an ample
size, but exceedingly raw and cold, as no fire burned within the
deep-throated chimney. The four walls were roughly coated with mortar.
The rafters overhead were bare. In the gloom of the space between the
steep gabled roof and the skeleton beams he could hear the occasional
whirring of a bat's wings, as it darted hither and thither across the
room. He lost precious little time in speculating upon his surroundings
and, quickly removing his steel gear, sought the comforts of the bed,
which he discovered, with much inward gratification, to be of a good
and easeful kind.
A few vagrant thoughts, some of them being of the wild tales he had
heard of the tavern wherein he was now tarrying, flitted vaguely across
his mind. Then, very soon after laying his head against the pillow, he
sank into the blissful unconsciousness of sleep.