THE PLAYER PROVES HIMSELF A GENTLEMAN.
"Warrants and pursuivants! Away! warrants and pursuivants!"--_The Wise
Woman of Hogsdon._
Sir Valentine Fleetwood was a thin man, with regular features and sunken
cheeks, his usually sallow face now flushed with fever. His full round
beard was gray, but there were yet streaks of black in his flowing hair.
"Sir Valentine," Hal began, suppressing his excitement, "there is
private news I must make known to you instantly." And he cast a look at
the doctor, who frowned, and at Anthony, who remained motionless near
the door, with his lanthorn still in hand, as if expecting that he
should soon have to escort Hal out again.
"Sir Valentine is not in a condition to hear--" broke in the doctor, in
a voice of no loudness, but of much latent authority.
"But this is of the gravest import--" interrupted Hal, and was himself
interrupted by Sir Valentine, who had gathered breath for speech.
"Nay, Harry, it may wait. I am in no mind for business."
"But it requireth immediate action," said Hal, who would have told the
news itself, but that he desired first the absence of the doctor and the
steward.
"Then 'twill serve nothing to be told," said Sir Valentine, lapsing into
his former weakness, and with a slight shade of annoyance upon his face.
"As thou see'st, boy, I am in no state for action. A plague upon the
leg, I can't stir it half an inch."
"But--" cried Harry.
The physician rose, and Anthony, with an outraged look, took a
deprecatory step toward Harry.
"No more, young sir!" quoth the physician, imperatively. "Sir
Valentine's life--"
"But that is what I have come to speak of," replied Hal, in some
dudgeon. "Zounds, sir, do you know what you hinder? There are concerns
you wot not of!"
"Tut, Master Marryott," said Sir Valentine. "As for my life, 'tis best
in the doctor's hands; and for concerns, I have none now but my
recovery. Not for myself, the blessed Mary knoweth! But for others'
sakes, in another land. Oh, to think I should be drawn into an unwilling
quarrel, and get this plagued hurt! And mine opponent--hast heard yet
how Mr. Hazlehurst fares, Anthony?"
"No, your honor," said the Puritan; but he let his glance fall to the
floor as he spoke, and seemed to suffer an inward groan as of
self-reproach. Sir Valentine could not see him for the bed-curtains.
"Tis a lesson to shun disputes, boy," said Sir Valentine, to Hal. "Here
were my old neighbor's son, young Mr. Hazlehurst, and myself, bare
acquaintances, 'tis true, but wishing each other no harm. And two days
ago, meeting where the roads crossed, and a foolish question of right of
way occurring, he must sputter out hot words at me, and I must chide him
as becometh an elder man; and ere I think of consequences, his sword is
out, and I have much to do to defend myself! And the end is, each is
carried off by servants, with blood flowing; my wound in the groin, his
somewhere in the breast. I would fain know how he lies toward recovery!
You should have taken pains to inquire, Anthony."
"Sir Valentine," said the physician, "thou art talking too much. Master
Marryott, you see how things stand. If you bear Sir Valentine
friendship, you have no choice but to go away, sith you have paid your
respects. He would have it that you be admitted. Pray, abuse not his
courtesy."
"But, sir, that which I must tell him concerns--"
"I'll hear naught that concerns myself," said Sir Valentine, with the
childish stubbornness of illness. "Tell me of thine own self, Harry.
'Tis years since I saw thee last, and in that time I've had no word of
thee. Didst go to London, and stay there? My letter, it seems, availed
thee nothing. How livest thou? What is thy place in the world?"
Hal decided to throw the physician and Anthony off guard by coming at
his news indirectly. So he answered Sir Valentine:
"I am a stage player."
Sir Valentine opened eyes and mouth in amazement; he gasped and stared.
"A stage player!" he echoed, horrified. "Thy father's son a stage
player! A Marryott a stage player! Sir, sir, you have fallen low!
Blessed Mary, what are the times? A gentleman turn stage player!"
Old Anthony had drawn back from Hal, vastly scandalized, his eyes raised
heavenward as if for divine protection from contamination; and the
physician gazed, in a kind of passionless curiosity.
"A stage player," said Hal, firmly, having taken his resolution, "may
prove himself still a gentleman. He may have a gentleman's sense of old
friendship shown, and a gentleman's honesty to repay it, as I have when
I come to save thee from the privy council's men riding hither to arrest
thee for high treason! And a gentleman's authority, as I have when I bid
this doctor and this Anthony to aid thy escape, and betray or hinder it
not, on pain of deeper wounds than thine!" And Hal, having drawn his
sword, stood with his back to the doorway.
Sir Valentine himself was the first to speak; he did so with quiet
gravity:
"Art quite sure of this, Harry?"
"Quite, Sir Valentine. We stage players consort with possessors of state
secrets, now and then. The warrant for thy apprehension was signed this
day. A council's pursuivant was to leave London at three o'clock, with
men to assure thy seizure. I, bearing in mind my family's debt to thine,
and mine own to thee, started at two, to give thee warning. More than
that, I swear to save thee. This arrest, look you, means thy death; from
what I heard, I perceive thy doom is prearranged; thy trial is to be a
pretence."
"I can believe that!" said Sir Valentine, with a grim smile.
"'Tis not my fault that these two have been let into the secret," said
Hal, indicating the physician and Anthony.
"And it shall not be to Sir Valentine's disadvantage, sir, speaking for
myself," said the physician.
"His honor knows whether I may be trusted," said Anthony, swelling with
haughty consciousness of his fidelity, as if to outdo the physician,
toward whom his looks were always oblique and of a covert antipathy.
"I know ye are my friends," said Sir Valentine. "I could have spoken for
you. But what is to be done? 'Tis true I cannot move. Think it no whimsy
of the doctor's, Harry. Blessed Mary, send heaven to my help! Think not,
Harry, 'tis for myself I moan. Thou knowest not how my matters stand
abroad. There are those awaiting me in France, dependent on me--"
"And to France we must send you safe, Sir Valentine!" said Harry. "You
could not be supported on horseback, I suppose?"
The physician looked amazed at the very suggestion, and Sir Valentine
smiled gloomily and shook his head.
"Or in a coach, an one were to be had?" Hal went on.
"'Twould be the death of him in two miles," said the physician.
"Moreover, where is a coach to be got in time?"
"Is there no hiding-place near, to which you might be carried?" asked
Hal, of Sir Valentine, knowing how most Catholic houses were provided in
those days.
Sir Valentine exchanged looks with the physician and Anthony, then
glanced toward the wall of the chamber, and answered:
"There is a space 'twixt yon panelling and the outer woodwork of the
house. It hath air through hidden openings to the cracked plaster
without; and is close to the chimney, for warmth. In a hasty search it
would be passed over,--there is good proof of that. But this pursuivant,
not finding me, would sound every foot of wall in the house. He would,
eventually, detect the hollowness of the panelling there, and the
looseness of the boards that hide the entrance. Or, if he did not that,
he and his men would rouse the county, and occupy the house in
expectation of my secret return; they would learn of my quarrel and
wound, and would know I must be hid somewhere near. While they remained
in the house, searching the neighborhood with sheriff's and magistrate's
men, keeping watch on every one, how should I be supplied and cared for
in that hole? It would soon become, not my hiding-place, but my
grave,--for which 'tis truly of the right dimensions!"
"But if, not finding you in the first search, they should suppose you
gone elsewhere?" said Hal, for sheer need of offering some hope, however
wild.
"Why, they would still make the house the centre of their search, as I
said."
"But if they were made to believe you had fled afar?"
"They would soon learn of my wound. It hath been bruited about the
neighborhood. They would know it made far flight impossible."
"But can they learn how bad thy wound is? Might it not be a harmless
scratch?"
"It might, for all the neighborhood knoweth of it," put in Anthony; and
the physician nodded.
"Then, if they had reason to think you far fled?" pursued Hal.
"Why," replied Sir Valentine, "some of them would go to make far hunt;
others would wait for my possible return, and to search the house for
papers. And the constables and officers of the shire would be put on the
watch for me."
"Need the search for papers lead to the discovery of yon hiding-place?"
"No. The searchers would find papers in my study to reward a search,
though none to harm any but myself. The other gentlemen concerned are
beyond earthly harm."
"But," quoth Hal, the vaguest outlines of a plan beginning to take shape
before him, "were the pursuivant, on arriving at your gate, to be
checked by certain news that you had fled in a particular direction,
would he not hasten off forthwith on your track, with all his men? Would
he take time for present search or occupancy of your house, or demand
upon constable's or sheriff's men? And if your track were kept ever in
view before him, would he not continue upon it to the end? And suppose
some of his men were left posted in thy house. These would be few,
three or four at most, seeing that the main force were close upon thy
trail. These three or four would not look for thy return; they would
look for thy taking by their comrades first. They would keep no vigil,
and being without their leader,--who would head the pursuing
party,--they would rest content with small search for papers; they would
rather be industrious in searching thy wine-cellar and pantry. Thus you
could be covertly attended from this chamber, by nurse or doctor,
acquainted with the house. And when you were able to move, these men,
being small in force, might be overpowered; or, being careless, they
might be eluded. And thus you might pass out of the house by night, and
into a coach got ready by the doctor, and so to the sea; and the men in
thy house none the wiser, and those upon thy false track still chasing
farther away."
"Harry, Harry," said Sir Valentine, in a kindly but hopeless tone, "thou
speak'st dreams, boy!"
"Ne'ertheless," said Hal, "is't not as I say, an the false chase were
once contrived?"
"Why," put in the physician, "that is true enough. Send me away the
pursuivant and most of his men, and let those who stay think Sir
Valentine thus pursued, and I'll warrant the looking to Sir Valentine's
wants, and his removal in nine days or so. Nine days he will need, not
an hour less; and yet another day, to make sure; that is ten. But
should the pursuers on the false chase discover their mistake, and
return ere ten days be gone, all were lost. E'en suppose they could be
tricked by some misguidance at the gate, which is not conceivable,
they'd not go long on their vain hunt without tangible track to follow.
Why, Master Marryott, they'd come speeding back in two hours!"
"But if a man rode ahead, and left tangible track, by being seen and
noted in the taverns and highways? He need but keep up the chase, by not
being caught; the pursuivant may be trusted to pick up all traces left
of his travels. These messengers of the council are skilled in tracing
men, when there are men to leave traces."
"What wild prating is this?" cried Sir Valentine, somewhat impatiently.
"I know thou mean'st kindly, Harry, but thy plan is made of moonshine.
Let a man, or a hundred men, ride forth and leave traces, what shall
make these officers think the man is I?"
"They shall see him leave thy gate in flight when they come up. And, as
for his leading them a chase, he will be on one of thy horses, an there
be time to make one ready, otherwise on mine,--in either case, on a
fresher horse than theirs. So he shall outride them at the first dash,
and then, one way and another, lead them farther and farther, day after
day."
"But, man, man! Wilder and wilder!" exclaimed Sir Valentine, as if he
thought himself trifled with. "Know you not their leader will be one
that is well acquainted with my face?"
"So much the better," cried Hal; "for then he will take oath it is you
he sees departing!"
"I he sees departing?" echoed Sir Valentine, and began to look at Hal
apprehensively, as if in suspicion of madness, a suspicion in which the
physician and Anthony seemed to join. "I departing, when I am in yon
narrow hole between timbers? I departing, when I am hurt beyond power of
motion, as their leader will doubtless learn at the village ale-house,
on inquiring if I be at home."
"Yes, sir," said Hal, "he shall think it is you, and the more so if he
have heard of your wound. For, in the lanthorn's light, as he comes in
seeing distance, he shall perceive that you sit your horse as a lame man
doth. And that thy head is stiffly perched, thy shoulders drawn back, in
the manner peculiar to them. And that thy left elbow is thrust out as is
its wont. And that thy hat, as usual, shades thy brow thus. But more
than all else, sir, that thy face is of little breadth, thy beard gray
and round, as they have been these many years."
And Hal, having realized in attitude each previous point in his
description, took from his pocket the false beard that had lain there
since the first performance of "Hamlet," and tying it on his face, which
he had thinned by drawing in his cheeks, stood transformed into the
living semblance of Sir Valentine Fleetwood.