It was high noon next day, and Gregory Ashburn was taking the air upon
the noble terrace of Castle Marleigh, when the beat of hoofs, rapidly
approaching up the avenue, arrested his attention. He stopped in his
walk, and, turning, sought to discover who came. His first thought was
of his brother; his second, of Kenneth. Through the half-denuded trees
he made out two mounted figures, riding side by side; and from the fact
of there being two, he adduced that this could not be Joseph returning.
Even as he waited he was joined by Cynthia, who took her stand beside
him, and voiced the inquiry that was in his mind. But her father could
no more than answer that he hoped it might be Kenneth.
Then the horsemen passed from behind the screen of trees and came into
the clearing before the terrace, and unto the waiting glances of Ashburn
and his daughter was revealed a curiously bedraggled and ill-assorted
pair. The one riding slightly in advance looked like a Puritan of the
meaner sort, in his battered steeple-hat and cloak of rusty black. The
other was closely wrapped in a red mantle, uptilted behind by a sword of
prodigious length, and for all that his broad, grey hat was unadorned
by any feather, it was set at a rakish, ruffling, damn-me angle that
pronounced him no likely comrade for the piously clad youth beside him.
But beneath that brave red cloak--alack!--as was presently seen when
they dismounted, that gentleman was in a sorry plight. He wore a leather
jerkin, so cut and soiled that any groom might have disdained it; a pair
of green breeches, frayed to their utmost; and coarse boots of untanned
leather, adorned by rusty spurs.
On the terrace Gregory paused a moment to call his groom to attend
the new-comers, then he passed down the steps to greet Kenneth with
boisterous effusion. Behind him, slow and stately as a woman of twice
her years, came Cynthia. Calm was her greeting of her lover, contained
in courteous expressions of pleasure at beholding him safe, and
suffering him to kiss her hand.
In the background, his sable locks uncovered out of deference to the
lady, stood Sir Crispin, his face pale and haggard, his lips parted, and
his grey eyes burning as they fell again, after the lapse of years, upon
the stones of this his home--the castle to which he was now come, hat in
hand, to beg for shelter.
Gregory was speaking, his hands resting upon Kenneth's shoulder.
“We have been much exercised concerning you, lad,” he was saying. “We
almost feared the worst, and yesterday Joseph left us to seek news of
you at Cromwell's hands. Where have you tarried?”
“Anon, sir; you shall learn anon. The story is a long one.”
“True; you will be tired, and perchance you would first rest a while.
Cynthia will see to it. But what scarecrow have you there? What
tatterdemalion is this?” he cried, pointing to Galliard. He had imagined
him a servant, but the dull flush that overspread Sir Crispin's face
told him of his error.
“I would have you know, sir,” Crispin began, with some heat, when
Kenneth interrupted him.
“Tis to this gentleman, sir, that I owe my presence here. He was my
fellow-prisoner, and but for his quick wit and stout arm I should be
stiff by now. Anon, sir, you shall hear the story of it, and I dare
swear it will divert you. This gentleman is Sir Crispin Galliard, lately
a captain of horse with whom I served in Middleton's Brigade.”
Crispin bowed low, conscious of the keen scrutiny in which Gregory's
eyes were bent upon him. In his heart there arose a fear that, haply
after all, the years that were sped had not wrought sufficient change in
him.
“Sir Crispin Galliard,” Ashburn was saying, after the manner of one who
is searching his memory. “Galliard, Galliard--not he whom they called
'Rakehelly Galliard,' and who gave us such trouble in the late King's
time?”
Crispin breathed once more. Ashburn's scrutiny was explained.
“The same, sir,” he answered, with a smile and a fresh bow. “Your
servant, sir; and yours, madam.”
Cynthia looked with interest at the lank, soldierly figure. She, too,
had heard--as who had not?--wild stories of this man's achievements. But
of no feat of his had she been told that could rival that of his escape
from Worcester; and when, that same evening, Kenneth related it, as they
supped, her low-lidded eyes grew very wide, and as they fell on Crispin,
admiration had taken now the place of interest.
Romance swayed as great a portion of her heart as it does of most
women's. She loved the poets and their songs of great deeds; and here
was one who, in the light of that which they related of him, was like an
incarnation of some hero out of a romancer's ballad.
Kenneth she never yet had held in over high esteem; but of a sudden, in
the presence of this harsh-featured dog of war, this grim, fierce-eyed
ruffler, he seemed to fade, despite his comeliness of face and form,
into a poor and puny insignificance. And when, presently, he unwisely
related how, when in the boat he had fainted, the maiden laughed
outright for very scorn.
At this plain expression of contempt, her father shot her a quick,
uneasy glance. Kenneth stopped short, bringing his narrative abruptly to
a close. Reproachfully he looked at her, turning first red, then white,
as anger chased annoyance through his soul. Galliard looked on with
quiet relish; her laugh had contained that which for days he had carried
in his heart. He drained his bumper slowly, and made no attempt to
relieve the awkward silence that sat upon the company.
Truth to tell, there was emotion enough in the soul of him who was wont
to be the life of every board he sat at to hold him silent and even
moody.
Here, after eighteen years, was he again in his ancestral home of
Marleigh. But how was he returned? As one who came under a feigned name,
to seek from usurping hands a shelter 'neath his own roof; a beggar of
that from others which it should have been his to grant or to deny
those others. As an avenger he came. For justice he came, and armed with
retribution; the flame of a hate unspeakable burning in his heart, and
demanding the lives--no less--of those that had destroyed him and his.
Yet was he forced to sit a mendicant almost at that board whose head was
his by every right; forced to sit and curb his mood, giving no outward
sign of the volcano that boiled and raged within his soul as his eye
fell upon the florid, smiling face and portly, well-fed frame of Gregory
Ashburn. For the time was not yet. He must wait; wait until Joseph's
return, so that he might spend his vengeance upon both together.
Patient had he been for eighteen years, confident that ere he died, a
just and merciful God would give him this for which he lived and waited.
Yet now that the season was at hand; now upon the very eve of that for
which he had so long been patient, a frenzy of impatience fretted him.
He drank deep that night, and through deep drinking his manner
thawed--for in his cups it was not his to be churlish to friend or foe.
Anon Cynthia withdrew; next Kenneth, who went in quest of her. Still
Crispin sat on, and drank his host's health above his breath, and his
perdition under it, till in the end Gregory, who never yet had found
his master at the bottle, grew numb and drowsy, and sat blinking at the
tapers.
Until midnight they remained at table, talking of this and that, and
each understanding little of what the other said. As the last hour of
night boomed out through the great hall, Gregory spoke of bed.
“Where do I lie to-night?” asked Crispin.
“In the northern wing,” answered Gregory with a hiccough.
“Nay, sir, I protest,” cried Galliard, struggling to his feet, and
swaying somewhat as he stood. “I'll sleep in the King's chamber, none
other.”
“The King's chamber?” echoed Gregory, and his face showed the confused
struggles of his brain. “What know you of the King's chamber?”
“That it faces the east and the sea, and that it is the chamber I love
best.”
“What can you know of it since, I take it, you have never seen it!”
“Have I not?” he began, in a voice that was awful in its threatening
calm. Then, recollecting himself, and shaking some of the drunkenness
from him: “In the old days, when the Marleighs were masters here,” he
mumbled, “I was often within these walls. Roland Marleigh was my friend.
The King's chamber was ever accorded me, and there, for old time's sake,
I'll lay these old bones of mine to-night.”
“You were Roland Marleigh's friend?” gasped Gregory. He was very white
now, and there was a sheen of moisture on his face. The sound of that
name had well-nigh sobered him. It was almost as if the ghost of Roland
Marleigh stood before him. His knees were loosened, and he sank back
into the chair from which he had but risen.
“Aye, I was his friend!” assented Crispin. “Poor Roland! He married your
sister, did he not, and it was thus that, having no issue and the family
being extinct, Castle Marleigh passed to you?”
“He married our cousin,” Gregory amended. “They were an ill-fated
family.”
“Ill-fated, indeed, an all accounts be true,” returned Crispin in a
maudlin voice. “Poor Roland! Well, for old time's sake, I'll sleep in
the King's chamber, Master Ashburn.”
“You shall sleep where you list, sir,” answered Gregory, and they rose.
“Do you look to honour us long at Castle Marleigh, Sir Crispin?” was
Gregory's last question before separating from his guest.
“Nay, sir, 'tis likely I shall go hence to-morrow,” answered Crispin,
unmindful of what he said.
“I trust not,” said Gregory, in accents of relief that belied him. “A
friend of Roland Marleigh's must ever be welcome in the house that was
Roland Marleigh's.”
“The house that was Roland Marleigh's,” Crispin muttered. “Heigho!
Life is precarious as the fall of a die at best an ephemeral business.
To-night you say the house that was Roland Marleigh's; presently men
will be saying the house that the Ashburns lived--aye, and died--in.
Give you good night, Master Ashburn.”
He staggered off, and stumbled up the broad staircase at the head
of which a servant now awaited, taper in hand, to conduct him to the
chamber he demanded.
Gregory followed him with a dull, frightened eye. Galliard's halting,
thickly uttered words had sounded like a prophecy in his ears.