When they had all gone and the hall was quiet, Thoroughgood came
slowly down with a puzzled frown on his honest, weather-beaten face
to where Halfman humped over his map.
"Where's the good of drilling clowns and cooks?" he asked, surlily.
He talked like one thoroughly weary, but his mood of weariness seemed
to melt before the sunshine of Halfman's smile as he lifted his head
from the map.
"Where's the harm?" he countered. "'Twas my lady's idea to keep their
spirits up, and, by God! it was a good thought. She knows how it
heartens folk to play a great part in a great business: keeps them
from feeling the fingers of famine in their inwards, keeps them from
whining, repining, declining, what you will. But I own I did not
count on the presence of Gammer Cook in the by-play."
"I could not see why she should be kept out of the mummery,"
Thoroughgood responded, "if she had a mind for the masking."
"Perhaps you are right," Halfman answered, meditatively. "My lady's
example would make a Hippolyta of any housemaid of them all."
"I do not know what it would make of them," Thoroughgood answered;
"but I know this, that it matters very little now."
Halfman swung round on his seat and stared at him curiously.
"Why?" he asked.
"Now that this truce is called," Thoroughgood answered, "that the
Roundhead captain may have speech with my lady."
"Why, what then?" questioned Halfman, with his eyes so fixed on
Thoroughgood's that Thoroughgood, dogged as he was, averted his gaze.
"Naught's left but surrender," he grunted, between his teeth. The
words came thickly, but Halfman heard them clearly. He raised his
right hand for a moment as if he had a thought to strike his
companion, but then, changing his temper, he let it fall idly upon
his knee as he surveyed Thoroughgood with a look that half disdained,
half pitied.
"My lady will never surrender," he said, quietly, with the quiet of a
man who enunciates a mathematical axiom. "You know that well enough."
Thoroughgood shrugged plaintive, protesting shoulders.
"We've stood this siege for many days," he muttered. "Food is running
out; powder is running out. Even the Lady Brilliana cannot work
miracles."
Halfman rose to his feet. His eyes were shining and he pressed his
clinched hands to his breast like a man in adoration.
"The Lady Brilliana can work miracles, does work miracles daily. Is
it no miracle that she has held this castle all these hours and days
against this rebel leaguer? Is it no miracle that she has poured the
spirit of chivalry into scullions and farm-hands and cook-wenches so
that not a Jack or Jill of them but would lose bright life blithely
for her and the King and God? Is it not a miracle that she has
transmuted, by a change more amazing than anything Master Ovid hath
recorded in his Metamorphoses, a villanous old land-devil and
sea-devil like myself into a passionate partisan? But what of me? God
bless her! She is my lady-angel, and her will is my will to the end
of the chapter."
He dropped in his chair again as if exhausted by the vehemence of his
words and the emotion which prompted them. Thoroughgood contemplated
him sourly.
"You prate like a play-actor," he snarled. Halfman's whole being
flashed into activity again. He was no more a sentimentalist but now
a roaring ranter.
"Because I was a play-actor once," he shouted, "when I was a
sweet-and-twenty youngling."
Thoroughgood eyed Halfman with a sudden air of distrust.
"You never told me you were a play-actor," he growled. "You spoke
only of soldiering."
Halfman laughed flagrantly in his face.
"Godamercy, man, there has been scant time to tell you my life's
story. We have had other cats to whip. Yes, I was a play-actor once,
and played for great poets, for men whose names have never tickled
your ears. But the owl-public would have none of me, and, owllike,
hooted me off the boards. But I've had my revenge of them. I've
played a devil's part on the devil's stage for thirty red years. Nune
Plaudite."
The Latin tag dropped dead at the porches of John Thoroughgood's
ears, but those ears pricked at part of Halfman's declamation.
"What kind of parts?" he asked, drawing a little nearer to the
soldier of fortune, whose experiences fascinated his inexperience.
Halfman shrugged his shoulders and favored honest Thoroughgood with a
bantering, quizzical smile.
"All kinds of parts," he answered. "How does the old puzzle run?
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, ploughboy, gentleman, thief. I think
I have played all those parts, and others, too. Fling beggar and
pirate into the dish. But I tell you this, honest John, I have never
played a part so dear to me as that of captain to this divine
commander. I thank my extravagant stars that steered me home to serve
her."
"You cannot sing her praises too sweetly for my ears," Thoroughgood
answered. "But there is an end to all things, and it looks to me as
if we were mighty near to an end of the siege of Harby. Why else
should there be a truce called that the Roundhead captain may have
speech with my lady."
"Honest John Thoroughgood," Halfman answered, with great composure,
"you are not so wise as you think. This Roundhead captain has sent us
hither the most passionate pleadings to be admitted to parley. Why
deny him? It will advantage him no jot, but it is possible we may
learn from the leakage of his lips something at least of what is
going on in the world."
"What is there to learn?" asked Thoroughgood. Halfman shook his head
reprovingly.
"Why, for my part, I should like to learn why in all this great gap
of time nothing has been done to help one side or the other. If the
gentry of Harby have made no effort to relieve us, neither, on the
other hand, has our leaguer been augmented by any reinforcements. If
my lady has been surprised that Sir Blaise Mickleton has made no show
of coming to her succor, I, for my part, am woundily surprised that
the Cropheads of Cambridge have sent no further levies for our
undoing."
"Why, for that matter--" Thoroughgood began, and then suddenly broke
off. "Here comes my lady," he said, turning and standing in an
attitude of respectful attention.
Halfman had known of her coming before his companion spoke. The Lady
Brilliana had come out on to the gallery from the door near the head
of the stairway, and Halfman was conscious of her presence before he
lifted his eyes and looked at her. She was not habited now, as on the
day when he first beheld her, in her riding-robe of green, but in a
simple house-gown chosen for the ease and freedom it allowed to a
great lady who had suddenly found that she had much to do. The color
of the stuff, a crimson, as being a royal, loyal color, well became
her fine skin and her dark curls and her bright, imperious eyes. She
was followed by her serving-woman, Tiffany, a merry girl that
Thoroughgood adored, and one that would in days gone over have been
likely to tickle the easy whimsies of Halfman. Now he had no eyes, no
thoughts, save for her mistress, the lass unparalleled.
Brilliana was speaking to Tiffany even as she entered the gallery.
"Strip more lint, Tiffany," she ordered; "and bid Andrew be brisk
with the charcoal."
Her voice was as buoyant as the song of a free bird, and her step on
the stair as light as if there were no such thing in the world as a
leaguer. Tiffany crossed the gallery and disappeared through the
opposite door. Brilliana, as she descended the stair, diverted her
speech to Thoroughgood.
"John Thoroughgood, I saw from the lattice our envoys bringing the
Parliament man down the elm walk. To them at once. They must not
unhood their hawk till he come to our presence."