My Champion
I began to speak again to the villains, repeating much that I had
said before, with even greater earnestness.
Sir Claudius Crossley stared at me, and listened for a moment or two
with a bewildered air. Then perceiving the drift of my words, he
rudely shouted to me to shut my mouth, and, signing to his men, they
caught up the old woman at my feet and bundled her along to the side
of the other victim, interposing several of their broad backs between
me and the poor old creatures.
The road being now completely blocked by the shouting men and boys,
my servants closed round me and literally carried me back to the
litter. In truth they were themselves of the opinion that the old
women were witches, who had sold themselves to the devil for a term
of years, and ought therefore to be put to death.
I was perforce obliged to sit in my litter, but it could not proceed
because of the crowd which blocked the way. I would not look towards
the wretched scene, but Betsy would not refrain from telling me every
detail of what was taking place with the supposed witches and their
enemies.
'Both old women are witches, mistress,' she cried. 'I thought so,
and now I know it; they are ugly as sin. The men are making them
confess. The way they do it is to pull their hair and screw their
wrists until they say for what sum the devil has bought their souls,
and for what length of time they have bound themselves to serve him.
No, mistress, Timothy will not allow you to interfere. He promised
Sir Henry that he would take you safely to Sion House, near London,
and he means to do it. Now, mistress, they are tying the witches'
thumbs together--the two of them are being tied together by the
thumbs, I mean--and now they are going to throw them into the water.
If they do not sink, they will know they are witches, and will force
them under; if they sink, they will drown, so there will be an end of
them in any case.'
'Oh, this is terrible--terrible!' I cried. Putting my head out of my
litter, I called to the ruffians to cease their cruelty. 'It is
murder,' I said; 'it is nothing but murder! "Thou shalt do no
murder."'
But I might as well have spoken to the wind, which was beginning to
rise in fitful gusts.
The mob--for by this time the crowd had become a howling mob--was in
no mood to be stayed from proceeding to extremities. A shower of mud
and stones was flung at my litter and its attendants, one of the
men-servants receiving a blow upon the shoulder, which might have put
it out of joint, being most violent.
'Wait till we have drowned the witches, then we will come for you!'
shouted Sir Claudius cruelly.
'Ay, ay, sir!' chorused many voices.
This was alarming. My servants put their heads together, muttering
their fears. I overheard them saying that they had seen the witch
looking hard at me as she begged for mercy, and that I might be
doomed, and what could three men and a woman do against more than a
hundred ruffians?
'Mistress,' said old Timothy to me at length. 'We can do nothing
against so many, and unfortunately we have already incurred their
anger. Far better would it be, therefore, for us to turn and flee
whilst they are occupied in drowning the witches.'
'Flee! Do you mean that?' exclaimed I.
'Yes. Yes, mistress dear. And quickly--quickly! It is our only
chance.'
And Timothy looked affrightedly at the angry faces of the mob.
'Nay. But that is cowardly!' I cried, 'to run away and think only of
our own skins when the weak and old are being murdered!'
'We shall be murdered ourselves in a few more minutes if we stay
here,' muttered the old man. 'Child,' he said, forgetting my new
dignity, which indeed profited me nothing just then, 'it is to save
our lives--_yours_, the most precious of all. How could I face Sir
Henry again if you were killed?'
And his voice shook.
'Killed! Killed? Are they threatening that? Oh, but, Timothy, we
have never done them any harm.'
'Ay, but you have!' cried the loud, domineering voice of Sir
Claudius, as he thrust himself forward to get between Timothy and me.
'You have tried to stop our sport!'
'Sport!' cried I, with the most mighty contempt I ever felt in all my
life. 'Sport! Call you it sport to torture and kill poor feeble old
women?'
Angered by my words, the miscreant was about to lay hold of me with
his great hands, when the lacquey Joseph gave him a blow of the fist
which sent him staggering into the midst of his men.
Alas, that was, as it were, a signal for hostilities to commence.
Men and boys rushed on us from all sides. My men-servants were
seized by overpowering numbers and hurled to the ground, and I myself
was lifted bodily out of the litter and set on a bank by the
roadside, so that all might see me.
The two old women were drowned now--their murderers thirsted for more
blood, and Sir Claudius, smarting from the treatment he had received
from the hands of my good Joseph, yearned above all things for
revenge.
'Eh, lads! What shall we do to my lady?' he asked mockingly,
pointing to me.
'Drown her also,' suggested one, with a hoarse laugh.
'Strangle her,' cried another.
'Carry her away to some remote country place, and then get money from
her friends before we will tell them where she is,' said a third.
Cries of approval and many alternative suggestions arose from the mob.
Looking from one to the other, I could see no pity, no relenting
anywhere, least of all in Sir Claudius. I spoke to him.
'I am a lady,' I said; 'where is your chivalry?'
The man had not any, but I thought it as well to cry out for what
ought to have been there.
'You tried to save those witches,' he began.
'And you will try to save me, will you not?' I asked, looking at him,
with the vain hope that I should see something which was not there.
'That I will not!' cried the churl.
'Shall we drown her, Sir Claudius? Shall we drown her, too?'
demanded many voices.
'Help! Help for a lady! Help for Mistress Brown!' shouted the
lacquey Joseph with his loud, stentorian voice. The honest fellow
had been bound hand and foot; he had nothing left but his voice with
which to serve me, and the next moment it was silenced with a blow
and a gag; but it had done good work.
Noiselessly over a soft fallow field a little group of horsemen had
approached, and at the sound of that loud, manly cry of my poor
Joseph's they charged into the mob, calling out lustily:--
'Disperse, in the King's name! In the King's name I say disperse!'
Bullies are cowards all the world over. The men who had drowned old
women and were threatening a defenceless girl with a like fate, took
to their heels with one accord, knocking down each other and falling
over each other in their flight, whilst, alarmed and struck, first on
this side and then on that, my horses set off galloping, and dashed,
with the litter, amongst the crowd, treading down some and crushing
others. The damage they did was appalling. Curses, shouts, groans
and screams filled the air on every side.
In a few moments none of the roughs remained near me, and I was
enabled to look up at my deliverer.
He was a handsome knight of medium size and frank, soldier-like
deportment and bearing; as I found afterwards, he was scarcely
twenty-six, yet he looked much older, having seen service in the
profession of arms from his boyhood. He was dressed in crimson
velvet, very worn and travel-stained. Indeed, both he and his horse
bore traces of a rapid journey across country, as did also his
followers and their horses.
'How shall I thank you?' I said gratefully. 'Sir, you have saved my
life.'
'I thank God that I came in time,' he said. 'I fear those rascals
have terrified you much.'
'I fear they have hurt my good serving-men,' I said, looking round
for them.
My champion, desirous of serving me still more, picked up my poor
Timothy, who, having been thrown down and trampled upon, was in no
little pain. He breathed better, however, when his arms were freed
and his legs unbound, and began to lament the loss of the horses and
litter, which made us think he was coming round finely. We left him,
therefore, to look to Joseph, who was in a desperate state, having
been almost smothered by the gag which was tied over his mouth and
nostrils. His face, swollen and discoloured, was fearful to look
upon, but I took his poor head on my lap and endeavoured to induce
him to drink from a flask my rescuer had put in my hand.
The good knight stood by me, with the kindest eyes it seemed to me
that I had ever seen.
'Give him time,' he said; 'give him time. There is no hurry.'
It seemed to me, as I glanced at him, that he would have stood there
all day with great content, so long as he could watch me doing
things, and no doubt he was tired, having ridden far.
'But look after the others, please,' I said, feeling anxious about
Betsy and John.
'They are all right,' he answered. 'They have picked themselves up
bravely. And your man is coming round.'
Then one of his followers came up to him, saying, 'Sir Hubert, we do
wrong to linger here. Those villains will return with greater
numbers, bent upon wreaking vengeance. There was one amongst them of
good birth, and a knight, but of low nature, who is notorious for
crime. He will return, if no one else does; and the lady----'
The rest of the sentence I could not hear, but it seemed to mightily
excite my brave deliverer.
Joseph was sitting up whilst this was going on, and begging my pardon
for the liberty he had taken in lying down with his head on my lap.
At the same moment John and Betsy declared themselves recovered.
'Lady,' said the knight, ''tis necessary that we hurry on. Say,
could you ride my horse? Or stay, Smith,' turning to one of his men,
'you have a quiet nag; bring her here for the lady.'
'Is there no hope of recovering my litter?' I asked, adding, 'I am
going all the way to Sion House, near London, where the Duke of
Northumberland's daughter-in-law awaits me.'
'The litter is lost to you,' was the startling answer. 'If we wait
here for its return, or pursue those runaway horses, we shall be lost
too. Madam,' the knight bent his head to speak softly in my ear, 'I
will not hide it from you. These are fearful times for a lady to be
travelling alone with so small a retinue. Lawless men, such as those
that have just been routed, might carry you off where your friends
would never hear of you again----'
'Why frighten us?' I interrupted, but had no time to say more, for
the noise of brawling again broke upon my ear.
The knight turned to his men, saying, 'They are coming. They are
many, we are few. We must ride back the way we came, across the
fields. Take up the lady's men and woman.'
And with that he lifted me hastily from the ground, and, placing me
upon his own horse, vaulted lightly into the saddle behind me.
'Hold fast, madam,' he said in my ear. 'Put your arms round my neck;
so. That is it. Now, Sultan, good horse, gallop thy fastest!'
Whinnying low, the horse tore off across the fallow fields, and away
we went like the wind, but I did not know even so much as the name of
the valiant knight to whom I was clinging as for life.