The high back of the settle where I sat being between us, Captain
Royston upon his return did not perceive me until, having dismissed
the sentry and set his candlestick upon a table, he drew near the
fire to warm himself; then, his eyes falling upon me--"Heyday, lad!"
he cried, "I did think you abed and asleep by this. I scarce know
how I came to forget you. Let me see--where should you lie to-night?
The house is mighty full, and I would not put you with----"
"Let me share your watch here an hour, Captain," I said. "I am very
wakeful, and it will be company for us both."
"Will you do so?" he asked with some eagerness, and once more
glancing at me with that same look, at once curious and shy, that I
had before noted. "Indeed I shall be glad of your company, were it
only to help me keep open eyes." And with that he flung himself
wearily into a seat over against me, hitching round his belt so that
his sword lay between the long legs that, to rest them the better, he
stretched full before him. "I was in the saddle all last night," he
went on, "and indeed it seems a week since I was in a bed. So here
let us sit, you and I, with the fate of England in our hands,"--at
which he pointed to the door of the Prince's stairway. "Hast
recovered of the spleen?"
I answered him that I was recovered.
"How came he to anger you?" he then asked me.
"Why, sir," I replied, "he did give bad names to all things in
England; and then he fell foul of the women--and--and I do not like
him."
"De Rondiniacque," said Captain Royston, "is a good comrade and a
brave soldier; and, faith, I did think all women were fair to him.
He will fall in love and again fall out thrice in a day. But no
woman is long fair in his eyes when his fortune has been ill. There
was a lass in Flanders--" and here he broke into a laugh, and I into
a yawn of subterfuge, in hope to put him off his tale. For I feared,
unjustly enough, more talk of that kind that I had comprehended but
sufficiently to dislike. Whereat he asked if he wearied me, and I
answered that he did not so, but that I would know if he were of a
like complexion with M. de Rondiniacque in matters of women and love.
"Nay, indeed, lad," he answered, laughing again; "De Rondiniacque and
I are little akin in such matters. I have, as he would say, the
slower temper--perhaps the more constant."
"Constant!" said I; and as I said the word I could feel the little
tremor in my laughter which I hoped his ear would not detect.
"Constant to what--to whom? Ah, there is doubtless some lady that
looks out over the endless canals and ugly windmills of flat Holland
for your return, Captain Royston."
"Nay, nay," he answered, "there is no broad Dutch face wet with tears
of my causing." And then the mirth died out of his voice, as with a
very tender hesitancy he continued: "But there is, or there was, a
little maid--a child--but, plague on me! what do I babble of? And
what does so young a lad as you know of these things?"
"H'm-m-m!" said I, as one that could, if he would but speak, lay
claim to knowledge enough and to spare.
"What, what!" he cried, mocking me. "Is your heart even as tender as
your years? Does the baby think he knows what love is?"
"On my conscience, yes," I answered; "but I may know and never feel
it, I do suppose."
"What an outlandish boy it is!" said Ned, laughing; and, more
gravely, "when you love, lad, and would have your lady look upon you,
be as when you served us so well this day, and not the child that is
disordered by the chance word of a jolly soldier. I have heard tell
that women do love one that is a man, be his vows, even as De
Rondiniacque's, never so brittle."
"Perhaps they do," I answered; and wondered, sickly a little in my
heart, how it would fare with me if his were so. "But," I continued,
"if men's vows are so light, what of that little maid?"
And my gallant Captain seemed to retire, as it were, again into his
shell, saying he would speak of her no more, and that indeed he knew
not wherefore he had called her to mind. Whereto I said that maybe I
could tell him.
"'T is little likely," said he, smiling as one that suffers the
gambols of a merry child, even to the peril of a wound but half
healed.
"But tell you I can," I persisted; "you spoke of her, not because she
did come to your mind, but because she is never out of it. Is it not
so?"
Again he looked at me with that glance of enquiry.
"Indeed, I think it is so," he replied; "but how you should know it,
Master----, by my life, here have I had all manner of converse with
you, even to the telling things that have not passed my lips this
three years, and yet I know not your name. Prithee, tell it me."
"My name is Drayton," I said.
"Is it even so?" cried Ned. "It is strange. Where do you live?"
"From here some five leagues on the great road, Salisbury way," I
answered.
"At Drayton Manor, is it?" he asked with great eagerness.
"At Drayton Manor," I replied.
"But old Sir Michael," says Ned, "had no son of your youth."
"Nay," said I, "I am no son of Sir Michael. But he is my nearest of
kin, and in his house do I live this many a day."
"Ah, so! I have heard," said Royston musingly, "of other branches of
the family. But, if Drayton be your home, you can tell me of--of the
child, your cousin; of Mistress Philippa Drayton, I mean, Sir
Michael's daughter."
"Aha! the little maid! At last we come at his little maid!" I cried,
clapping my hands together in a manner that suited but ill, as I
suppose, with my boots and spurs.
But he, like the man he was, being much occupied in attempt to
conceal the secret he was about revealing, did not mark me, but
sternly stiffened his face and made straight his back, and replied:
"I said not it was she. But I would have her news. Is she well, and
is she now at Drayton?"
"Gad 's my life!" I answered, feeling very blusterous and naughty as
I used my father's favorite oath, "it is so. She is well, and she is
at Drayton. I would she were not. She does keep her heart safe for
me, the baggage! Troth, I have little mind to her--a bouncing,
overgrown country wench, of ill manners, loud tongue, and shrewish
speech. Pah!" Whereat I twisted my mouth into a grimace very
disgustful, and I saw the light of anger come into his eye.
"You shall not so speak of that lady," he said, in a tone that was
not loud, yet had in it that which made one part of me shake with
fear, while the rest of the woman was singing a little inward song of
thanksgiving. Whereof it is like enough he saw in my face some sign,
for he went on more gently to say he knew it was not so; that I but
railed at her in mischief; that I mocked at him because, with
something womanish that is in a half-grown boy, I had divined the
secret of his love. "My heart," he said, rising from his seat with
eyes that looked afar, as if none was by him, "has never left her
keeping since she did ride upon my shoulder, but her little hands
ever hold me fast, even as they did use to cling and grip me by the
hair." With that he passed his hand over his head, as if he still
did feel the clutching baby fingers. Then he came back to me. "You
see, sir, I let you know at what it is you mock. Yet if you own the
words were but spoken in jest, I will pass the matter by."
And then I knew that I had been playing with fire, and made all haste
to quench it, owning with averted face that I had indeed but spoken
out of mischief to anger him, and saying that the girl was well
enough. It was, I suppose, from pride that he took no note of this
grudging opinion, yet it did not control his curiosity.
"And does she keep me in mind?" he asked, as he sank again into his
seat.
"'T is like enough," I answered, as if I cared little for the matter.
"I have heard her name you."
"In what terms?" said he; "I pray you, tell me what she said."
"Indeed, I do forget," I replied, mischief rising once more in my
heart. "And I will wager there have been times when you have forgot
the minx as readily as I would, if you would but let me, Captain."
"A fig for your wager!" said Royston lightly. "Why, I have never,
since I was out of England, entered a new town but I have bought some
toy or jewel for her." And I saw his hand steal to the breast of his
coat, and, guessing that there was a pocket beneath, I began at once
to be mighty curious to know what was in it, and to think my
masquerade had lasted near long enough when it kept me from my rights.
"Do you carry them?" I asked, striving to keep all eagerness out of
my manner.
"Nay, nay," he answered; and, had he been another man, I had thought
his smile and the short and hesitating laugh that followed it
well-nigh foolish: "Nay, 't is but a pair of the new kid-leather
gloves that they do use in France." And here he drew a small packet
from the pocket I had divined, and added, with much tenderness: "They
did make me think of her pretty hands, and I could no more put them
away from me."
And, as he regarded the packet and gently smoothed the wrapper, I
snatched it from his hand, and--"Let me see," I said, and proceeded
to unfold it.
"Gently, gently!" cried Ned; "they must not be so handled."
"Ay, they would fit me well," said I, measuring one against my left
hand. "And our hands are near of a size. Will you give them to me
in her stead, sir?"
"That will I not, young Avarice," he answered, recovering the gloves
with a snatch that took me by surprise. "My lady's gloves, indeed!
what next, monkey? Do you think, because you have a small fist and
handle a glove like a great girl, that you will get all you ask?"
"Well," said I, pouting and growing reckless in my delight of the
game I played, "well, I shall have them of her in the end."
"No more, jackanapes," he answered angrily, and I scarce know how I
should have fared had not the door at the foot of the Prince's stair
at that moment opened to admit Mr. William Bentinck.
"His Highness is retired, Captain Royston," he said. "He renews his
thanks to you."
To which Captain Royston replied that he wished the fare deserved
them better, and enquired whether Mr. Bentinck knew the way to his
chamber.
"I do," he replied. "I wish you a good-night, Captain Royston. It
were well," he added, with a dark and significant glance, "that no
further alarm befell--in your house, Captain."
"I am so much of your mind, sir," said Royston, "that I have asked
and obtained His Highness's consent here to watch the night through
myself. I wish you good rest." Mr. Bentinck turned again as he
reached the door, saying that His Highness had enquired of him where
the prisoners had been lodged that were taken after the affair in the
orchard.
"They lie under lock and guard in the strong-room above," said
Royston; "all but the priest, who is in the chamber that adjoins it
on the left, for greater safety. I did not think it well to leave
his clever head to work among them." And here M. de Rondiniacque,
looking into the room as he went his rounds, very readily undertook,
at Captain Royston's desire, to conduct Mr. Bentinck, that he might
with his own eyes, as Captain Royston said, see how these prisoners
were disposed. They being departed on this business, Captain Royston
stood gazing moodily into the fire. It seemed he had quite forgotten
me; and, since it did not fall with my wishes to be left out of his
thoughts, I plucked him timidly by the sleeve, and asked if I had
angered him with my freakishness.
"No, lad, no," he answered, still gazing into the fire. "I know not
indeed why I told you as much, unless it be that the Drayton face of
you did bring to mind old days, and made me think my thoughts aloud.
I know my poor secret is safe with a Drayton." And then he turned
and looked hard in my face.
And under his gaze I trembled, and had much ado not to throw my arms
about his neck and cry "Ned" to him. And yet I dared not, for shame
of my clothes, and so, to change the color of his thought, I said:
"That man does eye you with mistrust, Captain."
"He is no friend to me," said Ned, "nor ever has been. But His
Highness has no more faithful servant and friend than William
Bentinck. He had of late warning from France that the Prince's life
was sought after, and that a certain priest should lead the
assassins. To-day the attack is made, a priest is taken, and all in
my house, and I one of the few that knew His Highness should come to
this place. I can scarce wonder if he look on me with suspicion, and
would see himself how we guard the dogs above there in the
strong-room."
And then Mr. Bentinck and M. de Rondiniacque returned. The first was
pleased to approve all he had seen, but pointed out that the prison
of the priest was the chamber to the right of the strong-room, and
not on its left, as Captain Royston had said. M. de Rondiniacque
here explained that the prisoner had at his order been transferred
from the room to the other, on the report of the sentry that two bars
in the window of the priest's first lodging were rotten and might
easily be burst.
"It will serve as well, nay, better," said Captain Royston, still
dreamily gazing into the fire. And Mr. Bentinck, expressing himself
satisfied that all was well, departed to his chamber in company of M.
de Rondiniacque.
Now as these matters had for me little of interest, and as my fatigue
was great, I had been growing very weary and full of sleep; so it
came that when these gentlemen left us I signified my pleasure
thereat with a great yawn of weariness and a long sigh of
satisfaction.
"Poor lad!" cried Ned, with such tenderness as he was wont to use to
the child that had so loved and hectored him, "poor lad, you are
faint for sleep. I will see where we may put you."
"It is not sleep, Captain," I said, stifling a second yawn. "But I
take little interest in prisoners, and I am, oh! so thirsty."
"'T is the long ride, and your dinner was naught," he answered.
"Keep your eyes open, and watch a while here in my place, and I will
bring you food and wine. I pray you, do not close your eyes."
And as he neared the door, I saw him start as hit by a thought
forgotten, and--"The chamber on the right," he murmured. "How came I
to forget? But he will never find the panel, even though he were a
Jesuit." And so, with yet another warning that I should watch well
and not sleep, he went out into the gallery. And I sat by the fire,
wondering what those strange words should mean. Open indeed I did
keep my eyes, but I believe my mind was not very far from dreams at
the moment when a thing happened so like to a trick of sleeping fancy
that it awoke me quite. I thought that I saw, in that dim light (for
one great candlestick was above with His Highness of Orange, the
other below in the hand of Captain Royston), a great piece of the
stone wall that made the far side of the wide and lofty hearth slowly
to draw back and recede from my eyes, as a door that is opened
stealthily from behind. I sat erect and rubbed my eyes, and still
did it draw away from me, and made a noise of rusted grinding as it
went. And a nameless horror crept over my body till it reached and
seemed to stiffen the roots of my hair. I would have cried aloud as
I sat and expected something to come whence the door of stone had
gone; but before I could find voice there came from the gap in the
wall the darkly clad figure of a man, who stepped from the hearth,
and stood looking down upon me. His face I could not clearly
perceive, for the fire was behind him, but the sound of his voice I
thought I had once already heard.