"HE DIED FOR HIS KING."
"Hush!" whispered Lawrence, gripping her fast by the arm, and looking
hurriedly round. "And--well, what more did you hear? Tell me the
truth now."
"Lawrence," she said, timorously following his glance, "I want to
tell it you. But 'twas all such a confusion. Just a word here and
there; yet, oh, Lawrence! such fearful ones; of their own evil ways,
and of--of killing--of killing! Oh! shake your head if you like; but
they did, I tell you. And then some one said something about--think,
Lawrence--about the king."
"Ay?"
"And of laying him low upon his own highway. Think of it;" and Ruth
shivered in the bright sunshine.
"They were full, it seems, of their merry jests, these roystering
gentlemen," said Lee.
"Nay, I like not such jests; and I'd not have you joining in them,
nor my father neither," she said.
"Oh! but he's their arch-jester," cynically laughed Lawrence. "We're
a merry company, we boys, my dear."
But there was little enough of mirth in the young man's face, as he
stood there gazing across the level meadows, and up at the sailing
clouds, and in fact everywhere excepting into the clear, earnest eyes
of his companion as she came near and laid her hand gently on his
arm. "Lawrence, you bid me speak truth just now," she said, "and to
my best I did; for I would scorn to tell a lie, and least of all to
you. But it is not so you are serving me, sir, your old, old friend
Ruth. You are hiding something from me. Oh! but you are. Something
that troubles you; and that is not kind of you."
[Sidenote: Sad jesting.]
"Least said, soonest mended," he said, but in softened tones, and
gently withdrawing his arm from her grasp. "There are things done in
this world not good for such as you are to be told about, Ruth dear.
Tell me," he added, pointing to the basket, "does your father know
anything of all this?"
"No; I lacked the courage to anger him when he looked so kindly on me
this morning; and besides, I--well, I thought first I would speak
with you about it, Lawrence."
"That is well," answered Lee; "and for thy life, Ruth, do not tell
him. Do you understand--eh? It would be betraying such--such
terrible tales of these eavesdroppings of yours, letting such naughty
cats out of bags. Eh? wouldn't it, now? Do not tell a single soul;
do you hear, child?" and he gripped her by the arm till his fingers
left their marks on it. "Promise. 'Tis of course but a mere
trifle," he went on with ill-feigned unconcern. "Not worth our
wasting our breath upon. But still, if I were in your place I'd tell
nobody. Not a soul, dear heart! Eh?"
"That is as it may be," demurely answered she.
"But I command!" he cried sternly. "I forbid you to do it, do you
hear? I'll have no conditions."
"Ay, but I will," she said, resolutely setting her lips.
"Ruth, child! Ruth!" he said in the agony of his desperation; "you
don't know what you're saying. 'Tis playing with fire--with edged
tools."
"Ay, indeed," she said, with another glance at the bayonet.
"'Tis a matter of life and death."
"And yet this moment you called it a silly trifle," she said, lifting
her eyes reproachfully to his flushed face.
[Sidenote: Startling truths.]
"Death! Do you want to drive me mad?" he cried through his clenching
teeth. "I tell you, girl, if your foolish, gossiping tongue should
let slip one syllable of what you saw and overheard last night, it
would be a hanging matter for your father and for me."
"Lawrence, Lawrence!" gasped the terrified girl; "why? what for?"
"What for?" echoed he with heaving breast "Do you know what this
disobedience of yours has done?--undone, I mean. Shall I tell you?"
"Lawrence! what, what?"
"The good of a whole nation. That is what these gentlemen and your
father--"
"And you, Lawrence?" interrupted she.
[Sidenote: The shadow of a plot.]
"Ay, I suppose so;" and his voice fell slightly. "That is what we
were plot--arranging."
"And to be hanged for doing so much good? Oh! no, no. His majesty
would never allow that," said Ruth with an incredulous shake of her
head. "He is so generous, so kind! Why do you shiver like that? and
how dare you shake your head? I say the king is--"
"Hold your peace, child! You don't know what you're talking about.
'Tis just Charles who has to be--to be got rid of."
"Got rid of?" gasped Ruth. "How--what--"
"Nay, we have not got so far yet as that. Maybe he'll have to be
shipped across channel, or--yes, put in some safe place."
"Prison?"
"Nay, now, you're such a downright one!" winced Lawrence petulantly.
"Well, prison, then, if you like. Words break no bones."
"But deeds cut off heads!" sobbingly burst forth Ruth. "That's how
they served our martyred king."
"Psha! Martyred!" sneered Lawrence.
"First they put him in prison, and then they murdered him."
"Well, make your mind easy, child," said Lawrence. "That's not the
plan this time anyhow. 'Tis quite a different sort of one."
"Then there is a pian?"
"Something of one; though hang me if I can make head or tail of it!"
he said wearily. "They jangle over it so. One's for this way, and
one for that."
"And you, Lawrence?"
"I serve but to count with, child. Master Rumbold would have me in
it," he said with a shrug.
"And after some poor fashion he has you; but not your heart, I
doubt," said Ruth.
"Nay; perhaps I had not it to spare," he said, gazing down with
rather a sad smile at her sweet, attent face, which was brightening a
little; "and if I consented to be one of their lot, it was but to
keep friends with him."
[Sidenote: A little royalist.]
"'Twould have been more friendly of you to have been his enemy,"
sighed Ruth. "Had he asked such a thing of me, I would have defied
him. Ay, but I would, Lawrence. Mayhap an 'I'll turn no such
traitor, Master Rumbold!' from you, Lawrence, would have saved him
from this falling back into the old terrible ways. When I think,"
shudderingly went on Ruth, "that my father--my kind, loving father,
who calls me ladybird, and such sweet, merry names--was the same who
stood guard by King Charles's block, and looked on while his bleeding
head fell, it makes me dream such dreadful dreams that I start up
screaming in my sleep. Lawrence, I would you had defied him."
"He would never have spoken to me again, Ruth, if I had," answered
the young man; "and he would have forbidden me ever to see you, or
speak to you again."
She was silent for a few moments. "And better so," she said at last.
[Sidenote: A traitor or patriot?]
"You wouldn't mind, Ruth," he said bitterly. "It wouldn't matter a
scrap to you if you never saw me again. I know that;" and he turned
away.
"It would matter very much," she answered. "I think my life--my
outside life--would feel like this little stream here, when the
winter comes, and the flowers and the sunshine are all gone--"
"Dear child! Dear Ruth!"
"But," she went on, gently pushing away the hands he was stretching
out to her--"but still in my heart there would have been sunshine;
because I could have thought of Lawrence Lee as an honourable man,
and not as a traitor. What would Madam Lee think of you, Lawrence,
if she knew this that I know?"
"Hush!" he murmured, closing his eyes and knitting his brows.
"And your father," she went on; "he was of no such poor flimsy stuff.
He died for his king; true to the death."
"He believed in him," said Lawrence. "For my part--well, I speak as
I hear, Ruth. His worst enemies never denied Charles the First had
his good points; but the best friends of Charles the Second say 'tis
difficult to find his; and as for his faults, he's as full of them
as--"
"As you are, or any other mortal man. Come, tell me, you silly boy,
you, do you think that if these gentlemen--these fine 'friends' of
yours, who want to be rid, as you call it, of His Majesty--were
ruling England in his place, the country would fare happier? For my
part," went on Ruth, when no response from Lawrence appeared to be
forthcoming, "I doubt my father would make a rare stern tyrant. And
as for you, Lawrence--" but something in this notion suddenly upset
all Ruth's sober eloquence, and it rippled away in a peal of merry
laughter.
"I see nothing ludicrous in it," said Lawrence grimly.
"No indeed," said Ruth, regaining her gravity, "'tis no laughing
matter."
"Come, Ruth, if you have quite done your sermonizing, let us part
friends at least."
"That is at an end," she said, settling her disarranged hood, and,
drawing the handles of her basket well up to her elbow, she turned
her face homewards.
"But you were going to the Hall?" he said.
[Sidenote: Parting in sorrow.]
"I was," she replied; "but I cannot face Madam Lee and think what you
have become. Fare you well, Lawrence!"
"Ah, silly child! what should you know about politics? This comes,
now, of meddling in things you don't understand," he said fractiously
"'Tis not I who have meddled with them," she said; "and I would give
my gold and garnet brooch they had not come within a hundred miles of
Stanstead."
"Psha! Go your foolish, obstinate ways, then, Ruth. Stay, first
give me the basket."
"Give it you? Well, well," she went on; "now I think of it, 'tis
yours, I suppose. For old Diggory, your gardener, brought it over
last week full of early potatoes--a present for father from Madam
Lee. So take it, if you'll be troubled with it;" and, first
extracting its contents, she handed it to Lee.
He dashed it furiously into the stream, sending the terrified sheep
stampeding in all directions.
"This is too much," he said; "'twas the weapon I meant."
"That is not mine to give; and were it mine a million times over, I
would not give it you. The deadly hateful thing; unless--" and
taking it by its short handle, she laid its point to her heart.
"Mad girl!" he cried in agonizing amazement; "what would you do?
Give it me. Do you hear?" and he started forward to seize it.
[Sidenote: Ruth's threat.]
"Mind, Lawrence," she said, waving him back, "dare to lay a finger on
it, and--"
"What--what--?"
"And I will tell all the world--that is to say, I will tell Mistress
Sheppard, and that will serve just as well, of everything I heard and
saw last night. Say, Lawrence," and she half held the bayonet
towards him, "which way is to be?"
[Sidenote: Lawrence Lee in check.]
Without a word he turned from her, and strode wrathfully, and pale as
a ghost, away through the copse.