THE CONSTABLE OF CLOWN.
"I am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer; ... and one that
knows the law, go to."--_Much Ado about Nothing._
It was one hour after midnight, when the fellow travellers left the lone
inn near the Newark cross-road. They had arrived there at eight o'clock
in the evening. During their stay, Hal had obtained no sleep but that
which he had taken at the table, and which had lasted but a few minutes.
Anne had slept perhaps an hour before going down to the parlor. The
reader will remember the fatigued condition in which both had come to
the inn. Their next rest could not be had until a long and hard ride
should achieve for them a probable gain of some hours over the horsemen
whom Anthony Underhill had heard. For this gain, Hal counted on the fact
that Barnet's horses, more recently ridden, could not be as fresh as his
own, and on Barnet's constant necessity of pausing at each branching of
the road, to make inquiries. Such were the conditions under which the
second full day of the flight began.
It was now a time for drawing on that reserved energy which manifests
itself only in seasons of strait. Hal was aware, from past experience,
of this stored-up stock of endurance, that serves its possessor on
occasions of extremity. To Anne, its existence within her must have come
as a new disclosure. Hal, as a man of gentle rearing, had for her a
man's compassion for a woman to whom this discovery is made by hardship
undergone for the first time. And yet, so does human nature abound in
apparent contradictions, he had a kind of satisfaction, almost gleeful,
at the toils she had brought upon herself by attempting to overreach
him. For, had she used in sleep the time she had spent in that attempt,
had she not taken sufficient of the wine to enervate herself somewhat,
she would now have been in fresh vigor for the wearing ride before her.
The riders had a slight check at Nottingham, owing to a difference of
opinion between Master Marryott and the watch, as to the propriety of
their passing through the town at such an hour of the night. Hal was in
instant readiness for any outcry on the part of Mistress Hazlehurst. But
he looked so resolute, Kit Bottle so formidable, Anthony Underhill so
rigid with latent fighting force, that Anne doubtless saw little to be
gained from a conflict between her enemy and the unaided dotards of the
night watch. A gold piece, to reinforce a story explaining their early
riding, proved the magic opener it commonly proves, and obtained a
lantern from one of the watchmen, as well; and the fugitives rode free,
northward into Sherwood forest.
It was lone riding, and toilsome, through the green-wood where Robin
Hood and his outlaws had made merry, and past Newstead Abbey; and would
have been next to impossible but for the lantern, with which the Puritan
lighted up a few inches of the tree-roofed road ahead. Dawn found them
near Mansfield, through which town they soon after passed without stay,
and proceeded into Derbyshire.
At seven o'clock, having covered twenty-nine miles in the six hours
since their last setting out, and all but Kit Bottle being ready to fall
from their saddles, they stopped before a humble hostelry at Scardiff.
They could get but one fresh horse here. Bottle took this one, upon
which to ride back to a suitable spot for watching the road behind. The
others of the party had to be content with giving their nearly used-up
animals what rest might be had in saddle and bridle, and under a
penthouse roof at one end of the inn. Hal, before entering the inn,
bought the vigilance of a hostler toward keeping his horses in readiness
for further going, and against any attempt on Anne's part, through
Francis, to disable them while he slept; though, indeed, he saw little
likelihood of her employing such means, both she and her page being in
the utmost need of immediate sleep; and she unable to purchase treachery
of the inn folk, for, as he observed when she paid the hostess in
advance, her purse was now sadly fallen away. Hal foresaw, from this
last circumstance, two things: a certainty of her resorting soon to
desperate measures against him, and an opportunity for his chivalry to
display itself in an offer to pay her charges while she continued with
deadly purpose to accompany him.
As Hal was about to follow Anne into the house, he was greeted by a
pleasant-eyed old fellow who had been sitting on a bench by the door,
with a mug of ale at his side; an old fellow whose frieze jacket and
breeches proclaimed a yeoman, and whose presence on the outer bench on
so cold a morning betokened a lively curiosity as to the doings of his
fellow-men.
"God save your worship!" said he, in a mild little voice, rising and
bowing with great respect for gentility. "I dare say your honor hasna'
fell in with the rascals, on your worship's travels?"
Seeing but a rustical officiousness and news hunger in this speech, Hal
paused, and asked:
"What rascals, goodman?"
"Them that ha' pestered travellers, and householders, too, so bad of
late, on roads hereabout. Marry, 'tis well to go in plenty company, when
robbers ride in such number together! They make parlous wayfaring for
gentlefolk, your worship!"
"You mean that a band of highway robbers, more than common bold, hath
been in the neighborhood?"
"Ay, and I would any man might say the rogues were yet out of it! They
have terrified constables, and the justices sleep over the matter, and
the sheriff hath his affairs elsewhere; so God look after honest
travellers, say I, sir!"
"You say well," replied Marryott, casting a glance at Anne, who also had
stopped to listen to the countryman's words. She took from Hal's
countenance a sense of the further obligation she must needs be under
for his protection, now that a particular known danger was at hand; but
this sense only moved her to the inward resolve of ending alike that
obligation and their northward travel, by some supreme effort to entrap
him. He read her thought in her face, and his look defied her. She
hastened to her room, he to his; she, attended by Francis, he by Anthony
Underhill.
Marryott and Anthony soon despatched the scant meal brought to their
chamber. Before placing himself for sleep, Harry looked into the
passage. The boy Francis was at his customary post outside his
mistress's door.
Hal and the Puritan were asleep before eight o'clock. At ten, Hal awoke.
After he had glanced out of the window, and seen no one about the inn,
something--he knew not what--impelled him to take another view of the
passage. He did so; and this time he beheld no Francis.
He awakened Anthony, and the two stepped softly into the passage. They
stood for an instant before Mistress Hazlehurst's door, but heard no
sound from within. Down-stairs they went, surveying the public room of
the house as they passed out to the open air. The room was empty. They
hastened to the shed where the horses were. The horses were now but
two,--Marryott's and Anthony's. Those of Mistress Hazlehurst and her
page were gone.
With Hal's quick feeling of alarm, there came also a chilling sense of
sudden loneliness. A void seemed to have opened around him.
"The devil!" was all that he could say.
"She cannot have given up, and gone back," volunteered Anthony. "She
would have had to pass your man Bottle, and he would have ridden hither
to tell you she was stirring."
"Ay, 'tis plain enough she hath not fled southward, where Kit keeps
watch for Barnet's men. She hath ridden forward! Ho, John Ostler, a
murrain on you!" cried Hal. "The lady--whither hath she gone, and when?
Speak out, or 'twill fare hard with you!"
"'Twas but your own two beasts your honor bade me guard," said the
hostler, coming from the stables. "As for the lady, her and the lad went
that way, an hour since or so!" And the fellow pointed northward.
"Haste, Anthony!" muttered Hal, untying his own horse. "Ride yonder for
Kit Bottle, and then you and he gallop after me! She hath gone to raise
the country ahead of us! Failure of other means hath pushed her to belie
her declaration."
"A woman's declaration needeth little pushing, to be o'erthrown,"
commented Anthony, sagely, as he mounted.
"Tut, knave, 'tis a woman's privilege to renounce her word!" replied
Master Marryott, sharply, having already leaped to saddle.
"It may be so; I know not," said Anthony, with sour indifference; and
the two made for the road together.
"Well, see that Kit and you follow speedily, while I fly forward to stay
that lady, lest we be caught 'twixt Barnet's men behind us, and a hue
and cry in front!" Whereupon, without more ado, Hal spurred his horse in
the direction that Anne had taken, while Anthony turned southward in
quest of Bottle.
As Hal sped along, he did not dare confess which of the two motives more
fed his anxious impatience: solicitude for his own cause, or fear that
Anne might meet danger on the road,--for he recalled what the countryman
had told him of highway robbers infesting the neighborhood.
He put four miles behind him, neither winning glimpse of her nor being
overtaken by Kit and Anthony. Seeking naught in the forward distance but
her figure--now so distinct in his imagination, so painfully absent from
his real vision,--he paid no heed, until he had galloped into the very
midst of it, to a numerous crowd of heavy-shod countrymen that lined
both sides of the road at the entrance to the village of Clown.
So impetuous had been Hal's forward movement, so complete the possession
of his mind by the one image, that he had seen this village assemblage
with dull eyes, and with no sense of its possibly having anything to do
with himself; yet it was just such a gathering that he ought to have
expected, and against which he ought to have been on his guard. Not
until it closed about him, not until a huge loutish fellow caught the
rein of his suddenly impeded horse, and a pair of rustics drew across
the road--from a side lane--a clumsy covered coach that wholly blocked
the way, and a little old man on the edge of the crowd brandished a
rusty bill and called out in a squeaky voice, "Surrender!" did Hal
realize that he had ridden right into the hands of a force hastily
gathered by the village constable to waylay and take him prisoner.
Hal clapped hand to sword-hilt, and surveyed the crowd with a sweeping
glance. The constable had evidently brought out every able-bodied man
in the near neighborhood. Three or four were armed with long bills,
hooked and pointed, like that borne by the constable himself. Others
carried stout staves. Emboldened by the example of the giant who had
seized Hal's rein, the clowns pressed close around his horse. Ere Hal
could draw sword, his wrist was caught in the iron grasp of one of the
giant's great brown paws. Two other burly villagers laid hold of his
pistols. With his free hand, Hal tried to back his horse out of the
press, but was prevented both by the throng behind and by the big
fellow's gripe of the rein. Marryott thereupon flashed out his dagger,
and essayed to use it upon the hand that imprisoned his wrist. But his
arm was caught, in the elbow crook, by the hook of a bill that a yeoman
wielded in the nick of time. The next instant, a heavy blow from a stave
struck the dagger from Hal's hand. His legs were seized, and he was a
captured man.
All this had occurred in short time, during the plunging of Hal's horse
and the shouting of the crowd. It had been a vastly different matter
from the night encounter with Mistress Hazlehurst's servants. These
yokels of Clown, assembled in large number, led by the parish Hercules,
bearing the homely weapons to which they were used, opposing afoot and
by daylight a solitary mounted man to whom their attack was a complete
surprise, were a force from whom defeat was no disgrace. Yet never did
Master Marryott know keener rage, humiliation, and self-reproach
--self-reproach for his heedless precipitancy, and his having ridden on
without his two men--than when he found himself captive to these
rustics; save when, a moment later, his glance met an open casement of
an ale-house at one side of the road, and he saw Anne Hazlehurst! Her
look was one of triumph; her smile like that with which he had greeted
her after the incident of the locked door at Oakham. And, for the space
of that moment, he hated her.
"Sir Valentine Fleetwood," cried the constable, in his senile squeak,
pushing his way with a sudden access of pomposity from his place at the
crowd's edge, "I apprehend you for high treason, and charge you to get
down from your horse and come peaceably to the justice's house."
"Justice's house!" cried Hal, most wrathfully. "Of what do you prate,
old fool? What have I to do with scurvy, rustical justices?"
"To Justice Loudwight's, your honor," replied the constable, suddenly
tamed by Hal's high and mighty tone. "In good sooth, his house is
pleasant lodging, even for a knight, or lord either, and his table and
wine--"
"Devil take Justice Loudwight's table and wine, and a black murrain take
yourself!" broke in Hal, from his horse. "Give me my weapons, and let
me pass! What foolery is this, you rogue, to hinder one of her Majesty's
subjects travelling on weighty business?"
"Nay, sir, I know my duty, and Mr. Loudwight shall judge. I must hold
you till he come back from Chesterfield, whither he hath gone to--"
"I care not wherefore Mr. Loudwight hath gone to Chesterfield, or if
every other country wight in Derbyshire hath gone to visit the foul
fiend! Nor can I tarry for their coming back," quoth Hal, truly enough,
for such tarrying meant his detention for the arrival of Roger Barnet.
"Let me pass on, or this place shall rue this day!"
"I be the constable, and I know my duty, and I must apprehend all flying
traitors, whether they be traitors or no, which is a matter for my
betters in the law to give judgment on."
The constable's manner showed a desire to prove himself an authoritative
personage, in the eyes of the community and of Mistress Hazlehurst. He
was a quailing old fellow, who pretended boldness; a simple soul, who
affected shrewdness.
"Know your duty, say you?" quoth Hal. "Were that so, you would know a
constable may not hold a gentleman without a warrant. Where is your
writ?"
"Talk not of warrants! I'll have warrants enough when Justice Loudwight
cometh home. Though I have no warrant yet, I have information," and the
constable glanced at the window from which Anne looked down at the
scene.
Hal thought of the surely fatal consequences of his remaining in custody
till either Justice Loudwight should come home or Roger Barnet arrive.
His heart sank. True, Kit Bottle and Anthony Underhill might appear at
any moment; but their two swords, unaided by his own, would scarce avail
against the whole village toward effecting a rescue. He pondered a
second; then spoke thus:
"Look you, Master Constable! You have information. Well, information is
but information. Mine affairs so press me onward that I may not wait to
be judged of your Mr. Loudwight. Hear you, therefore, the charge against
me, and mine answer to't. While the justice is away, is not the
constable the main pillar of the law? And shall not a constable judge of
information that cometh to him first? Ods-light, 'tis a pretty pass when
one may say this-and-that into the ears of a constable, and bid him act
upon it as 'twere heaven's truth! Hath he no mind of his own, by which
he may judge of information? If he have authority to receive
information, hath he not authority to receive denial of it, and to
render opinion 'twixt the two?"
The constable, flattered and magnified--he knew not exactly why--by
Hal's words and mien, expanded and looked profound; then answered, with
a sage, approving nod:
"There is much law and equity in what you say, sir!"
Quick to improve the situation, Hal instantly added:
"Then face me with your informer, Master Constable, and judge lawfully
between us!"
"Bring this worshipful prisoner before me!" commanded the constable,
addressing the giant and the others in possession of Hal's horse, legs,
and weapons; and thereupon walked, with great authority, into the
ale-house. Hal was promptly pulled from his saddle, and led after him.
The constabulary presence established itself behind a table at one side
of the public room. The giant and another fellow held Hal, while a third
tied his hands behind with a rope.
The villagery crowded into the room, pushing Hal almost against the
constable's table. But, after a moment, the crowd parted; for Anne
Hazlehurst, having witnessed the course of events from her window, had
come down-stairs without being summoned, and she now moved forward to
Hal's side, closely followed by Francis. Meanwhile, at the constable's
order, a gawkish stripling, whose looks betokened an underdone
pedagogue, took a seat at the table's end, with writing materials which
the officer of the peace had commanded from the ale-house keeper in
order to give an imposing legal aspect to the proceedings.
"Now, sir," began the constable, with his best copy of a judicial frown,
"there is here to be examined a question of whether this offender be in
truth a pursued traitor--"
"Pardon me, Master Constable," objected Hal. "Sith it is questionable
whether I be that traitor. I may not yet be called an offender."
"Sir," replied the constable, taking on severity from the presence of
Anne, "leave these matters to them that stand for the laws. Offender you
are, and that's certain, having done offence in that you did resist
apprehension."
"Nay, if I be the pursued traitor I am charged with being," said Hal,
"then might that apprehension have been proper, and I might stand guilty
of resistance; but if I be no such traitor, the apprehension was but the
molesting of a true subject of the queen, and my resistance was but a
self-defence, and the offence was of them that stayed me."
The constable began to fear he was in deep waters; so cleared his throat
for time, and at last proceeded:
"There is much can be said thereon, and if it be exhibited that there
was resistance, then be sure justice will be rendered. If it be proven
you are no traitor, then perhaps it shall follow that there was no
resistance. But yet I say not so for certain. What is your name, sir?"
Before Hal could answer, Mistress Hazlehurst put in:
"His name is Sir Valentine Fleetwood, and he is flying from a warrant--"
"Write down Sir Valentine Fleetwood," said the constable, in an
undertone, to the youth with quill, ink-horn, and paper.
"Write down no such name!" cried Hal. "Write down Harry Marryott,
gentleman, of the lord chamberlain's company of players!" And Hal faced
Anne, with a look of defiance. Ere any one could speak, he went on,
"This lady, whom I take to be your informer, will confess that, if I be
not Sir Valentine Fleetwood, I am not the person she doth accuse."
During the silence of the assemblage, Anne regarded Hal with a
contemptuous smile, as if she thought his device to escape detention as
shallow and foolish as had been her own first attempt to hinder him.
"What name shall I put down?" asked the puzzled scribe, of the
constable.
"Write Sir Valentine Fleetwood!" repeated Anne, peremptorily. "This
gentleman's sorry shift to evade you, Master Constable, is scarce worthy
of his birth."
"Write down Sir Valentine Fleetwood," ordered the constable. "Is not
this the examination of Sir Valentine Fleetwood, and whose name else--?"
"If it be the examination of Sir Valentine Fleetwood," interrupted Hal,
"then 'tis not my examination, and I demand of you my liberty forthwith;
for I do not acknowledge that name! I warn you, constable!"
Taken aback by Hal's threatening tone, the constable looked irresolute,
and glanced from Hal to Anne and back again.
Mistress Hazlehurst opened her eyes in a mixture of amazement and alarm,
as if it might indeed be possible that her enemy's device should have
effect upon this ignorant rustic. She took the supposed Sir Valentine's
denial of that name to be a pitiful lie, employed on the spur of the
moment. It was not less important to Hal that she should so take it,
than it was that the constable should receive it as truth; and he now
had to wear toward the officer a manner of veracity, and toward Anne the
mien of a ready and brazen liar. This could not but make her loathe him
the more, and it went against him to assume it. But in his mind he could
hear the steady hoof-beats of Roger Barnet's horses coming up from the
south, and so he must stick firmly to the truth which made him in her
eyes a liar.
Her momentary look of alarm died away as the constable continued to gaze
in stupid indecision. She waited for others to speak; she had no
interest in hastening matters; her hopes were served by every minute of
delay. But Hal's case was the reverse.
"Well, man," he said, to the slow-thinking constable. "I am here to
answer to any charge made against me in mine own name. If you have aught
to say concerning Mr. Harry Marryott, of the lord chamberlain's players,
set it forth, for I am in haste. I swear to you, by God's name, and on
the cross of my sword if yon fellow hand it back to me, that I am not
Sir Valentine Fleetwood, and that there is no warrant for my
apprehension!"
"Perjurer!" cried Anne, with scorn and indignation.
"Nay, madam," quoth the constable, somewhat impressed by Hal's
declaration, "an oath is an oath. There be the laws of evidence--"
"Then hear my oath!" she broke in. "I swear, before God, this gentleman
is he that the royal officers are in pursuit of, with proper
warrant,--as you shall soon know, when they come hither!"
The constable sat in bewilderment; frowned, gulped, and hemmed; gazed at
Hal, at Anne, at the table before him, and into the open mouth of the
lean clerk, who waited for something to write down. At last he squeaked:
"'Tis but oath against oath--a fair balance."
"Then take the oath of my page," said Anne, quickly, drawing Francis
forward. "He will swear this is the gentleman of whom I told you."
"That I do," quoth Francis, sturdily, "upon this cross!" And he held
aloft his dagger-hilt.
The constable heaved a great sigh of relief, and looked upon Hal with an
eased countenance.
"The weight of evidence convicts you, sir," he said. "Let the name of
Sir Valentine Fleetwood be taken down, and then his oath, and then the
names of these two swearers, and their two oaths--"
"Stay a moment, Master Constable!" cried Hal, his eye suddenly caught by
the dismounting of two men from horseback, outside the ale-house window,
which had been opened to let fresh air in upon the crowd. "There be
other oaths to take down! Ho. Kit Bottle, and Anthony, tie your horses
and come hither! Nay, gripe not your swords! Let there be no breach of
the peace. But hasten in!"
The general attention fell upon the newcomers, who had ridden hotly.
With a dauntless air Kit Bottle strode through the crowd, handling men
roughly to make a way, and followed close by Anthony.
"What a murrain hath befallen--?" Kit was beginning; but Hal stopped him
with:
"No time for words! Captain Bottle, you and worthy Master Underhill,
testify to this officer my name, the name half London knows me by as a
player of the lord chamberlain's company! This lady will have it I am
one Sir Valentine Fleetwood. Speak my true name, therefore, upon your
oath."
Hal had said enough to inform both Kit and Anthony what name was wanted
on this occasion, and the captain instantly answered:
"I will swear to this officer--an thou call'st him such--and maintain it
with my sword against any man in England, that thou art no Sir Valentine
Fleetwood, but art Master Harry Marryott, and none other, of the lord
chamberlain's servants!"
"'Tis the simple truth," said Anthony Underhill, glowering coldly upon
the constable. "I will take oath thereto."
The constable held up three fingers of one hand, on Hal's side, and two
fingers of the other hand, on Anne's side, and said to her:
"Mistress, here be three oaths against two; thou'rt clearly outsworn!"
"Perjurers!" said Anne, facing Master Marryott and his men.
"Nay, nay, madam!" quoth the constable, becoming severe on the
victorious side. "An there be charge of perjury in the case, look to
thyself! Since these three have sworn truly, it followeth that thy two
oaths be false oaths!"
"Rascal!" cried Hal. "Do you dare accuse this lady of false swearing?"
"Why, why, surely your three oaths be true--"
"True they are, and see you to't my horse and weapons be rendered up to
me straightways! But this lady swore what she thought true. She had good
reason for so thinking, and village rogues would best use fair words to
her!"
He cast a side-glance at Anne, as he finished speaking; but at that
instant she turned her back upon him, and went from the room, as swiftly
as the crowd could let her. Hal, perforce, stayed to be unbound by the
rustics that had held him. At the further orders of the constable, who
speedily dwindled into obsequious nothingness under the swaggering
disdain of Captain Bottle, Hal's weapons were restored to him. When he
went out to the road, he found his horse ready, with Kit's and
Anthony's. The huge coach, recently used by the rustics to obstruct the
way, had been moved back into the lane. Hal remarked aloud upon this, as
he made ready to mount.
"Ay, your worship," said a villager, who had overheard him, "we opened
the way again, when the lady rode off a minute ago."
"The lady!" cried Hal, and exchanged a blank look with Kit and Anthony.
He had lost sight of her, while being released and repossessed of his
weapons. "A plague on my dull wits!" he added, for the ears of his two
men alone. "She hath gone to try the same game in the next parish, and
fortune will scarce favor me with such another choice organ of the law
as this constable!"
Meanwhile, in the ale-house, the constable, after some meditation,
called for ale to be brought to the table at which he had been sitting,
and said, thoughtfully, to his ally of the pen and ink-horn:
"Thou mayst tear what thou hast taken down of the examination, William."
And William, muddled by participation in the recent rush of events,
absently tore to pieces his sheet of paper, on which he had written
nothing.