FROM this time forth, as far as it was possible, Gervase and Anne kept
to the woods and the fields. For several weeks they yielded themselves
to a free life in the open. Drenched by the rains, combed by the winds,
baked by the sun, they soon became as brown as berries.
All day would they wander hand in hand. But this was a state of things
that could not last. A clear conviction had grown up in the heart of
Gervase that a term had been set to his days. At any moment he might be
taken. Therefore would he have his taste of life.
He welcomed nature in all her moods. He basked in her sunlight, he
turned his face to her winds, he rejoiced when her sudden plumps of
rain drenched him to the skin. And the brave thing, ever beside him, to
whom he owed the life which was still his, she too in her courage and
devotion was in a mood of highest fortitude.
Come what might, they would live their hour. Already Anne had made a
vow that when the call came to Gervase she would obey it too. When that
dread hour came in which they could no longer put off their captors
they were resolved to die together. Soon or late a tragic fate must
overtake them. But in the meantime let them taste of life in its
abundance, let them rejoice in the ever-mounting passion of their love.
Often a barn or a byre sufficed for their night’s lodging, but they
seldom lacked food. Even in the most rural places Gervase’s skill upon
the flute, blended occasionally with the fresh and charming voice of
Anne, hardly ever failed to bring a few pence which served to buy them
a meal.
It was a good life and yet a very hard one. They dared not venture into
the larger places where pence might have been more plentiful. Thus for
the most part the fare was coarse and scanty, and often were their
bones a mass of aches from the unkindness of their couches. They were
tanned like gypsies, fine-drawn as greyhounds; and all too soon their
clothes began to display holes and tatters in spite of the care with
which they tended them.
Small wonder was it that as the days passed this severe life of the
road began to pall. Greatly as they exulted in their freedom, they
began to long intensely for gentler fare. Besides, they were inclined
to view their perils more lightly. Nerved by hardship, very hungry
and also grown a little desperate after a long succession of most
uncomfortable days and nights, they found themselves on a glorious
morning in the streets of the famous town of Oxford. And here a thing
befell that was to change the current of their lives.
It was hardly more than eight o’clock by the time they came into the
Cornmarket, where stood the Crown Tavern, which was the principal inn
in the city. The season was June, and young as was the day the sun was
already hot in a sky that was without a cloud.
A man dressed neatly in a doublet of black velvet, and with a short
cock’s feather in his hat, sat on a bench in the sun by the tavern
door. On his knees was a mass of papers which he was studying intently.
The expression upon his face was a little dubious at times, and more
than a little pensive at others. Now and again as he read he indulged
in a trick of brushing back his rather long hair with the palm of his
hand, and to this he had free recourse when he came to a passage in the
close-written folio that particularly engaged his attention.
As the strains of Gervase’s flute, mingled with the notes of Anne’s
rather plaintive treble, caught the man’s ear he paused suddenly in his
task. With an eager, inquiring eye that was singularly searching he
looked up; and as it fell upon the pair of vagabonds who were coming
slowly across the Cornmarket toward where he sat, there was something
in their aspect which seemed to arouse his curiosity. At any rate he
laid his papers down on the bench, and regarded the musician and the
singer with an air of great candor and interest.
It may have been that the performance on the flute struck him as
possessing a merit beyond the common, or it may have been that the
sweetly plaintive voice touched a chord in his heart, or again it
may have been that some subtle quality in the aspect of these ragged
robins spoke to him. For at least his scrutiny was grave, direct, very
regardful. It was as if he saw, beyond the tawny skins, the unkempt
locks, the tattered clothes, an underlying strangeness as of something
far other than was as yet revealed.
So oddly was this man taken by the appearance of these wanderers that
when they halted, rather timidly as it seemed, some twenty paces from
where he sat, he was fain to beckon to them to come nearer. Yes, here
were youth and grace indeed, and beneath their tan was an unmistakable
beauty. Very slowly and very gravely the man on the tavern bench looked
them up and down from top to toe.
“Playing for a breakfast, young sir?” he said in a tone of amused
friendliness, when at last this scrutiny was at an end.
“Yes, sir, we be,” said Gervase.
Of late the young man had affected a kind of Doric in his speech, the
better to accord with an appearance that grew more and more rustical.
But as soon as the man heard the tone of his voice a smile played
furtively upon his lips.
Again were those observing eyes directed upon Gervase and Anne. There
was neither unkindness nor impertinence in that whimsical gaze. It was
hardly more than the sympathetic curiosity of a subtle mind in the
presence of a mystery it is tempted to solve. But to Gervase at least
it brought a sense of discomfort. The man’s whole aspect made him feel
that here was a mental power, a faculty of divination far beyond the
common.
“My friend,” said the man, with a disarming air of courtesy, “if I may
say so, you perform so choicely upon the flute that you should seldom
go wanting a meal.”
“Ah, sir, we lack one sometimes,” said Gervase.
“There should be no occasion to do so this morning at least. Persons of
taste abound in this old university town.”
“That is good news, sir,” said Gervase guardedly.
“And had I been bred at this ancient seat of learning I myself might
have claimed to be of their number.” So soft and gentle was the tone of
the man’s voice that Gervase was set more than ever upon his guard.
The young man tried to show by a gesture that the conversation was
being carried above the plane on which his bucolic wits were accustomed
to move. But unhappily its very politeness defeated the object in
view. No rustic since the world began had ever been able to convey a
deprecation so delicate in a manner so urbane.
The man could not forbear to be amused. “Well, sir,” said he, “let me
make myself clearer. May I, as a humble lover of the arts, offer a
breakfast to you and your friend in order to celebrate your genius upon
the flute?”
“Certainly, sir, you may,” said Gervase, with grateful alacrity, and
casting all prudence to the wind.
The man bowed as if aware that an honor had been done him. “Is there
any particular dish, sir, you crave for your breakfast?”
Instead of replying to the question Gervase looked at Anne, as if
he desired that in a matter of such importance hers should be the
responsibility of choosing.
Quick to follow the glance, as he was quick to follow all things, the
man was fain to take it for his guide. “What do you desire for your
breakfast, young sir?” he said to Anne.
“A dish of sweetbreads, if it please you,” said Anne, without an
instant’s hesitation.
“The devil you do!” The man broke into a cry of laughter. “You eat
delicate, young sir. Is a dish of sweetbreads your usual fare of a
morning?”
“No,” said Anne. “But you asked me what I would like for my breakfast.”
“Well, young gypsy, you shall have ’em, confound me if you shall not,
if good Mistress Davenant can rise to such fare. I will go and inquire.”
The man gathered his papers, rose from the bench and entered the tavern.
Anne and Gervase were left on the threshold to speculate, perhaps a
little dubiously, upon this new turn in their fortunes. Gervase was
already spurring his memory to recall who this man might be. He had the
clearest recollection of having seen him before. But where he had seen
him and in what circumstances he could not remember just then. Still,
he felt not the least distrust of him. The countenance was subtle
enough, and wholly unlike that of any other man, but it had also a
frankness, a candor, a large geniality which wholly forbade the idea of
treachery.
Soon the man returned with a roguish light in his eye and the assurance
that Mistress Davenant would furnish a dish of sweetbreads in twenty
minutes.
These were glad tidings. Gervase rendered his thanks in his best Doric
and begged to be allowed the use of the pump in the courtyard of the
inn. Surely such a noble repast called for some amenity on the part of
those who would yield to its delights.