BACK TO THE INN
If this were a mere story to while away an idle hour, I, the scribe,
would tie neatly every knot and leave no Irish pennants hanging from
my work. But life, alas, is no pattern drawn to scale. The many
interweaving threads are caught up in strange tangles, and over them,
darkly and inscrutably, Atropos presides. Who cannot recall to mind
names and faces still alive with the friendship of a few weeks or
months,--a friendship pleasant in memory,--a friendship that promised
fruitful years, but that was lost for ever when a boy or man drifted
out of sight for one reason or another, and on one tide or another of
the projects that go to make up life? To Philip Marsham, tramping again
the high roads of England, there came, mingled with many other desires,
a longing to see once more the Scottish smith who had wrought the dirk
that had tasted blood for his protection in those dark adventures at
sea. But when he came to the smithy beside the heath he found it open
and empty. The wind blew the door on rusty hinges; brown leaves had
drifted in and lay about the cold forge; the coals were dead, the
bellows were broken, and the lonely man who had wrought iron on the now
rusty anvil had taken his tools and gone.
The day was still young, for the wayfarer, starting early and in the
fullness of his strength, had this day covered three miles in the time
that one had taken him when he walked that road before. So he left the
smithy and pushed on across the heath and far beyond it, marking each
familiar farm and village and country house, until night had fallen and
the stars had come out, when he laid him down under a hedge and slept.
He was thinking, when he fell asleep, of Nell Entick. He remembered
very well her handsome face, her head held so high, her white throat
and bare arms. He was going back to the inn to claim fulfillment of
her promise and he pictured her as waiting for him there. In most ways
he was a bold, resolute youth who had seen much of life; but in some
ways, nevertheless, he was a lad of small experience, and if he thought
at all that she had been a little overbold, a little overwilling, he
thought only that she was as honestly frank as he.
Waking that night upon his bed of leaves, he saw far away on a hill the
dancing flames of a campfire, concerning which he greatly wondered.
For, having been long out of England, he had small knowledge of
the ups and downs of parliaments and kings; and in the brief time
since his return, of which he had spent nearly all in prison, he had
heard nothing of the tumultuous state of the kingdom, save a few
words dropped here or there while he was passing through hamlets and
villages, and seen nothing thereof save such show of arms as in one
place or another had caught his eye but not his thought. Although he
knew it not, since he was a plain lad with no gift of second-sight, he
lay in a country poised on the brink of war and his bed was made in the
field where a great battle was to be fought.
He went on at daylight, and going through a village at high noon
saw a preacher in clipped hair and sober garb, who was calling on
the people to be valiant and of good courage against those wicked
men who had incited riot and rebellion among the Roman Catholics in
Ireland, whereby the King might find pretext for raising a vast army to
devastate and enslave England. Sorely perplexed by this talk, of which
he understood little, Phil besought a sneering young fellow, who stood
at no great distance, for an explanation; to which the fellow replied
that it was talk for them that wore short hair and long ears, and that
unless a man kept watch upon his wits his own ears would grow as long
from hearing it as those of any Roundhead ass in the country. At this
Phil took umbrage; but the fellow cried Nay, that he would fight no
such keen blade, who was, it seemed, a better man than he looked. And
with a laugh he waved the matter off and strolled away.
So to the inn Phil came in due time, having meditated much, meanwhile,
on the talk of the King and war and the rights of Parliament, which was
in the mouths and ears of all men. But he put such things out of his
mind when at last he saw the inn, for the moment was at hand when his
dreams should come true and he should find waiting for him the Nell
Entick he remembered from long ago.
Surely a lad of enterprise, who had ventured the world over with
pirates, could find in any English village something to which he could
turn his hand. Indeed, who knew but some day he might keep the inn
himself--or do better? Who knew? He remembered Little Grimsby and drew
a long breath. Caught in a whirl of excitement that set the blood
drumming in his ears, he strode into the house and, boldly stepping up
to the public bar, called loudly, "Holla, I say! I would have speech of
Mistress Nell Entick."
From a tall settle in the corner, where he sat taking tobacco, there
rose a huge man with red and angry face.
"Who in the Devil's name art thou," he roared, "that comes ranting into
an honest house and bawls out thus the name of Mistress Nell Entick?"
There were as usual a couple of countrymen sitting with pots of ale,
who reared their heads in vast amazement, and in the noisy kitchen
down the passage a perceptible hush followed the loud words. The house
seemed to pause and listen; the countrymen set down their pots; there
was a sound of creaking hinges and of lightly falling feet.
Very coolly, smiling slightly, Philip Marsham met the eyes of the big,
red-faced man. "It seems," said he, "thou art riding for another fall."
A look of recognition, at first incredulous, then profoundly
displeased, dawned on the red face and even greater anger followed.
"Thou banging, basting, broiling brogger!" he thundered. "Thou
ill-contrived, filthy villain! Out the door! Begone!"
"It seems, Jamie Barwick, that thy wits are struck with years. Have
care. Thy brother is already on the road to Wapping--they have signed
and sealed his passage."
The fat man came to Phil with the slow gait and the low-hung head of a
surly dog. He thrust his red face close to Phil's own.
"Yea, it is thou," he sneered. "I am minded to beat thee and bang thee
till thou goest skulking under the hedges for cover. But it seems thou
hast good news. What is this talk of the hangman's budget?"
"It is true. By now thine excellent brother hath in all likelihood
donned the black cap and danced on air. As for beating and
banging--scratch thy head and agitate thy memory and consider if I have
given thee reason to hope for quietness and submission."
There was a flicker of doubt in the man's small eyes, whereby it seemed
his memory served him well.
"And what meanest thou by saying thou would'st have speech of Mistress
Nell Entick?" he asked suspiciously.
"That concerns thee not."
"Ha!" He scowled darkly. "Methinks it concerns me nearly!"
And then a high voice cried, "Who called my name?"
They turned and Phil Marsham's face lighted, for she stood in the door.
She was not so fair as he had pictured her--what lad's memory will not
play such tricks as that?--and he thought that when he had taken her
away from the inn she need never again wear a drabbled gown. But it
was she, the Nell Entick who had so lightly given him her promise and
kissed him as he fled, and he had come for her.
"Back again, John? Nay, John was not thy name. Stay! No, it hath
escaped me, but I remember well thy face. And shall I bring thee ale?
Or sack? We have some rare fine sack."
He stared at her as if he could not believe his ears had told him
right. "I have come," he said, "to claim a certain promise--"
She looked bewildered, puzzled, then laughed loudly. "Silly boy!" she
cried. "I am these six months a wife."
"A wife!"
"Yea, and mine," cried Barwick. "Come, begone I I'll have no puppies
sniffling at her heels."
At something in the man's manner, the full truth dawned on Philip
Marsham. "I see. And you have taken the inn?"
"Yea, that I have! Must I split thy head to let in knowledge? Begone!"
She laid her hand on Barwick's wrist. "The lad means no harm," she
whispered. "Come, it is folly to drive trade away." And over Barwick's
shoulder she cast Phil such a glance that he knew, maid or matron, she
would philander still.
But Phil had seen her with new eyes and the old charm was broken.
(Perhaps if Tom Marsham had waited a year before he leaped into
marriage, I had had no story to tell!) All that was best in the father
had come down to the son, and Phil turned his back on the siren with
the bold, bright eyes. He turned his back on the inn, too, and all the
dreams he had built around it--a boy's imaginings raised on the sands
of a moment's fancy. Nay, he turned his back on all the world he had
hitherto known.
With a feeling that he was rubbing from his face a spider's web of
sordidness,--that he was cutting the last cord that bound him to his
old, wild life,--stirred by a new and daring project, he went out of
the inn and turned to the left and took the road in search of Sir John
Bristol.