It did not remain solitary long. Unawares, the steps of Halfman and
Evander had been dogged ever since they crossed the moat and set out
on their pilgrimage through the gardens. Crouching behind hedges,
lingering in coppices, peeping through thickets, two persistent
trackers had pursued the unconscious quarry. Scarcely had the shadows
of Evander and his companion vanished from the grasses of the
pleasaunce than the pursuers emerged from the shelter of a yew screen
and ran into the open, staring after the departing pair. Yet these
pursuers were no stealthy enemies, but merely creatures spurred by an
irresistible curiosity. One was stout and red faced and inclined to
breathe hard after the fatigues of the chase. The other was slim and
smooth, with ripe cheeks and bright eyes, lodgings for the insolence
of youth. In a word, the hunters were Mistress Satchell and pretty
Tiffany, who had found their Puritan prisoner and visitor a being of
considerable interest.
Mistress Satchell turned a damp, shining face and a questioning eye
upon Tiffany.
"Is not he a dashing lad for a Puritan?" she gasped, patting her
ample chest with both hands as if to fondle her newly recovered
breath. Tiffany, who was bearing her mistress's lute, shrugged and
pouted.
"I see little to like in him," she snapped. This was not at all true,
but she was not going to admit as much to Mistress Satchell, or, for
that matter, to herself. Mistress Satchell snorted fiercely, like an
offended war-horse.
"Because he has not clipped you round the waist, pinched you in the
cheek, kissed you on the lips--such liberties as our rufflers use.
But he is a man for my money."
She spoke with vehemence. Pretty Tiffany made a dainty grimace as she
answered:
"I think I am pleasing enough to behold, yet he gave me no more than
a glance when he gave me good-day."
Mistress Satchell's ample bulk swayed with indignation.
"He is a lad of taste, I tell you. Why should he waste his gaze on
such small goods when there was nobler ware anigh? He smiled all over
his face when he greeted me."
Tiffany was sorely tempted to smile all over her face as she
listened, but Mistress Satchell's temper was short and her arm long,
so she kept her countenance as she answered, shortly:
"He is little."
This Mistress Satchell swiftly countered with the affirmation:
"He is great."
Tiffany thrust again.
"He is naught."
Again Dame Satchell parried.
"He is much," she screamed, and her face was poppy-red with passion,
but Tiffany, retreating warily and persistent to tease, was about to
start some fresh disclaimer of the Puritan's merits when she caught
sight through a yew arch vista of a gown of gold and gray, and her
tongue faltered.
"Our lady," she whispered to Mistress Satchell, who had barely time
to compose her ruffled countenance when Brilliana came through the
yew arch and paused on the edge of the pleasaunce surveying the
belligerents with an amused smile.
"What are you two brawling about?" she asked, as she moved slowly
towards the marble seat. Tiffany thrust in the first word.
"Goody Satchell will vex me with praise of the Parliament man."
By this time Brilliana had seated herself, observing her vehement
shes with amusement. She turned a face of assumed gravity upon the
elder.
"So, so, Mistress Satchell, have you turned Roundhead all of a
sudden?"
Mrs. Satchell shook her head at Brilliana and her fist at Tiffany.
"Tiffany is a minx, but I am an honest woman; and as I am an honest
woman, there are honest qualities in this honest Puritan."
Brilliana knew as much herself and fretted at the knowledge. It cut
against the grain of her heart to admit that a rebel could have any
redemption by gifts. But she still questioned Mistress Satchell
smoothly, thinking the while of a man intrenched behind a table, one
man against six.
"What are these marvels?" she asked.
Mistress Satchell was voluble of collected encomiums.
"Why, Thomas Coachman swears he is a master of horse-manage, and he
has taught Luke Gardener a new method of grafting roses, and Simon
Warrener swears he knows as much of hawking as any man in Oxford or
Warwick."
She paused, out of breath. Brilliana, leaning forward with an air of
infinite gravity, commented:
"It were more to your point, surely, if the gentleman had skill in
cook-craft."
Mistress Satchell was not to be outdone; she clapped her hands
together noisily and shrilled her triumph.
"There, too, he meets you. After breakfast this morning, when I asked
him how he fared, he overpraised my table, and he gave me a recipe
for grilling capons in the Spanish manner--well, you shall know, if
you do but live long enough."
The ruddy dame nodded significantly as she closed thus cryptically
her tables of praises. Brilliana uplifted her hands in a pretty air
of wonder.
"The phoenix," she sighed, "the paragon, the nonpareil of the
buttery." Instantly her smiling face grew grave.
"Well, it is not for us to praise him or blame him while he is on our
hands. See that you give him good meals, Mistress Satchell."
Dame Satchell stared at her mistress in some amazement.
"Will he not dine in hall, my lady?"
Brilliana frowned now in good earnest.
"Lordamercy! do you think I would sit at meat with a rebel? Have I
not set him a room apart, to spare myself the sight of him? Serve him
in his own rooms, but look you serve him well."
Dame Satchell wagged her head with an air of the deepest
significance.
"I warrant you," she muttered, "he commended my soused cucumbers."
And so nodding and chuckling she moved like a great galleon over the
green, and soon was out of sight. The moment her broad back was well
turned, Tiffany permitted herself to utter the protests which had
been boiling within her.
"To listen to Dame Satchell, one would think that no man had ever
seen a horse or known one dish from another before this."
Brilliana gave her handmaid a glance of something near akin to
displeasure.
"I think you all talk and think too much of the gentleman. I see
little to praise in him save a certain coolness in peril. Let us have
no more of him. We must use him well, but he will soon be gone, and a
good riddance. Is my lute tuned, Tiffany?"
Tiffany answered "Ay," and her lady took up the lute and picked at
a tune, yawning. The world seemed to have grown very tedious all of
a sudden, and it did not seem so pleasant as she deemed it would
prove to sit again in the yew circle and sing. She began a song or
two, to leave each unfinished with a yawn, and, because yawning is
contagious, Tiffany yawned too, discreetly behind her fingers. It
was while Tiffany looked away to conceal a vaster yawn than its
fellows, too vast for masking with finger-tips, that she saw a
soldierly figure coming across the garden towards the pleasaunce.
"My lady," she cried, turning to Brilliana, "here comes Captain
Halfman. Let us ask him his mind as to the Parliament man."
Brilliana's face brightened. Here was company, and good company. She
had believed him too busy to be seen so soon, for she had bade him
see about raising a troop of volunteers in the village, and she
turned round readily to greet her companion of the siege.
Through the yew portal Halfman came, gravity reigning in his eyes and
slaking their wild fire. He saluted Brilliana with the deep reverence
he always showed to his fair general. Brilliana turned to her
adjutant eagerly:
"Master Halfman, Master Halfman," she cried, "how do you measure our
rebel?"
Halfman's gravity lightened amazingly at the thought of his prisoner.
"I take him," he answered, emphatically, "for as proper a fellow as
ever I met in all my vagabond days. Barring his primness he would
have proved a gallant"--he was going to say "pirate," but paused in
time and said "seaman." "God pardon him for a Puritan," he went on,
"for he has in him the making of a rare Cavalier."
Brilliana turned to Tiffany, whose cheeks were very red.
"Hang your head, child," she cried; "for you are outvoted in a
parliament of praise. Beat a retreat, maid Tiffany."
The crimson Tiffany fled from the pleasaunce.
"Where is your prisoner?" Brilliana asked.
"I have envoyed him over park and garden," Halfman answered, "and
brought him to port in the library."
"Alas! I pity him," sighed Brilliana; "it holds few books of
divinity. But come, recruiting-sergeant, what of our volunteers?"
"So pleases you, my lady," Halfman said, "our troop is swelling fast,
and the sooner we clap them into colored coats the better."
Brilliana's curls danced in denial.
"Alas! friend, I have sad news for you. Of cloth for coats I can
indeed command a great plenty"--she paused doubtfully.
"Why this is glad news, not sad news," Halfman said. "So may you
serve it out with all despatch."
Brilliana dropped her hands to her sides and her lids over her eyes,
a pretty picture of despair; but, "Alas! 'tis all white," she
confessed--"wool white, snow white, ermine white. You must needs have
patience, good recruiting-sergeant, till I can have it dyed the royal
red."
Halfman pushed patience from him with outspread palms.
"Shall the King lack hands for lack of madder?" he questioned, with
humorous indignation. "Not so, I pray you; let us cut our coats from
your white cloth. I promise you we will dye it ourselves red enough
in the blood of the enemy." Brilliana sprang to her feet rejoicing.
"Bravely said; so shall it be bravely done. I will give orders at
once for the cutting and sewing. I will back our white coats against
Master Hampden's green coats, or Essex's swarm in orange-tawny. Have
you conveyed my message to my two miserly neighbors?"
"I sent Clupp to Master Hungerford," Halfman answered, "and Garlinge
to Master Rainham, bidding them to your presence peremptory. But I
warn you, my lady, from all I hear, that if you hope to raise coin
for the King's cause from either of the skinflints you will be sadly
at a loss."
"At least I must try," Brilliana declared. "Am I not the King's
viceroy in Oxfordshire, and are not the two money-bags my proclaimed
adorers? It will go hard with me but I compel them to swell the
King's exchequer."
"You have done marvels," Halfman admitted. "Can you work miracles?
With all due reverence, I doubt. But we shall soon see, for here
comes Tiffany tiptoe through the trees. I'll wager it is to herald
one of the vultures."
As he spoke, Tiffany tripped in pink and grinning.
"My lady," said she, "Master Paul Hungerford has ridden in and seeks
audience."
Brilliana clapped her hands.
"Go, bring him in, Tiffany; and, Tiffany child, if Master Peter
Rainham comes, as I shrewdly expect, keep him apart, on your life,
till I know of his coming."
Tiffany vanished. Brilliana turned to Halfman.
"Stay with me, captain, and aid me to trap these badgers."
Halfman smiled delight. "I will help you extempore," he promised. "I
will eke out my part with impromptus."
He stood a little apart, grim mirth in his eyes, as Tiffany ushered
into the circle a lean, shabby country-gentleman, whose habit would
have shamed a scarecrow. Tiffany disappeared and the new-comer made
Brilliana an awkward bow. "Sweet lady, you sent for me and I come,
love, quickly."