TREACHERY.
"God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless
you!"--_Henry V._
"Here is the snow thou hast foretold," said Master Marryott to Anthony
Underhill, as the cavalcade set out, three hours after midnight.
"And a plague of wind," put in Captain Rumney, with a good humor in
which Marryott smelt some purpose of cultivating confidence.
The riders wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and muffled their necks
to keep out the pelting flakes. The night being at its darkest, the snow
was more "perceptible to feeling" than "to sight," save where it flew
and eddied in the light of a torch carried by Bottle at the head of the
line, and of a lanthorn that Hal had caused to be attached to the rear
of the coach. Between these two dim centres of radiance, the horsemen
shivered and grumbled unseen, and cursed their steeds, and wished red
murrains and black plagues, and poxes of no designated color, upon the
weather.
They passed through Keighley about dawn. Two miles further on, they
stopped at an isolated house for breakfast. As Marryott opened the coach
curtain (it had been closed against the whirling snow), to convey to the
prisoners some cakes and milk, Mistress Hazlehurst motioned Francis to
set the platter on a coach seat, and said to Hal:
"If you wish not to murder me, you will let me walk a little rather than
eat. I seem to have lost the use of legs and arms, penned up in this
cage these two days."
"Nay, 'tis but a day and a half," corrected Marryott. "But you may walk
whiles we tarry here, an you choose. The snow is ankle-deep in the road,
however."
"I care not if it be knee-deep."
"Will you promise to return to the coach at my word, if I let you out to
walk?" Hal did not feel equal to putting her into the coach again by
bodily force.
"God's light, yes! What choice have I?"
"And while you walk, I must walk beside you, and Francis at my other
side."
"I have said, what choice have I?"
He offered his hand to assist her from the coach. But she leaped out
unaided, and started forthwith in the direction whence the travellers
had just come. Hal waited for Francis, and then strode after her,
holding the page by a sleeve. Kit Bottle was busy looking to the
refreshment of the horses. Captain Rumney was stalking up and down the
road, his whole attention apparently concentrated upon a pot of ale he
carried. Anthony Underhill had ridden back to a slightly elevated spot,
to keep watch.
Master Marryott was soon at his prisoner's side. She could not, for snow
and wind, long maintain the pace at which she had started from the
coach. The weather reddened her cheeks, which took hue also from her
crimson cloak and hood. Hal thought her very beautiful,--a thing of
bloom and rich color in a bleak, white desert. It smote him keenly to
remember that she deemed him her brother's slayer. He was half tempted
to tell her the truth, now that she was his prisoner and could not go
back to undeceive Roger Barnet. But would she believe him? And if she
should, was it certain that she might not escape ere the next two days
were up? Prudence counselled Hal to take no risks. So, in faintest hope
of shaking her hatred a little, of creating at least a doubt in his
favor, he fell back on the poor device of which he had already made one
or two abortive trials.
"I swear to you, Mistress Hazlehurst," he began, somewhat awkwardly,
"'twas not I that gave your brother his unhappy wound. There is
something unexplained, touching that occurrence, that will be cleared to
you in time."
A little to his surprise, she did not cut short all possible discussion
by some sharp derisive or contemptuous answer. Though her tone showed no
falling away from conviction, she yet evinced a passive willingness to
talk of the matter.
"There hath been explanation enough for me," she answered. "I had the
full story of my brother's servants, who saw all."
"The officers of justice could not have had a like story," said Hal, at
random. "Else why came they never to Fleetwood house?"
"You well know. The quarrel was witnessed of none but your man and my
brother's servants. They kept all quiet; your man, for your safety's
sake; my brother's men, for--for the reason--My brother's men kept all
quiet, too, till I came home."
"And why did your brother's men so? You broke off there."
"Oh, I care not if I say it! My brother's servants were not as near the
encounter as your man was, and they saw ill; they were of a delusion
that you struck in self-defence. And my brother, too, bade them hush the
matter."
"'Twas as much as to admit that he was the offender."
"Well, what matters that? At best there was little zeal he might expect
of his neighbors in visiting the law upon you. He was a man of too
strong mettle; he was too hated in the county to hope for justice, even
against a Catholic. Well you know that, Sir Valentine Fleetwood! But I
would have had my rights of the law, or paid you in mine own way,[27]
had not this other means of vengeance come to my hand! Self-defence or
no self-defence, you shed my brother's blood, and I will be a cause of
the shedding of yours!"
"But I say naught of self-defence. I say I am not he that, rightly or
wrongly, shed your brother's blood!"
"God-'a'-mercy, sir, I marvel at you! Tis sheer impudence to deny what
mine own family servants saw with their eyes and told me with their
lips! Think you, because I am some miles and days from all witnesses of
the quarrel, save your own man, my mind is to be clouded upon it?"
"I say only that there is a strange circumstance in all this business,
that may not yet be opened to you. Well, I see that till time shall
permit explanation, I must despair of seeming other to you than stained
with your brother's blood. My word of honor, my oath, avail not--"
"Speak you of oaths and words of honor? There was some talk of oaths two
days ago, before the constable of Clown!"
Hal sighed. He did not notice that, in drawing him further into
conversation, she had drawn him further from the coach, which was indeed
now hidden behind a slight turn of the road.
"Well," quoth he, resignedly, "time shall clear me; and show, too, why I
have had to put so admired a lady to so irksome a constraint."
"Say, rather, time shall give your prisoner revenge for all constraint.
Think not you have put me to much distress! What says the play? Women
can endure mewing up, so that you tie not their tongues!"
"I thank heaven you have not given me cause to tie your tongue!"
"Given you cause,--how?" she asked, looking full at him.
"Why, suppose, in the towns we passed, you had cried out from the coach
to people, and I had found the closed curtain of no avail."
"What would you have done then?"
"Bound with a silken kerchief the shapeliest mouth in England! Ay, with
these very hands of mine!"
"Ere that were done, I should have made stir enough to draw a concourse.
Were I hard put to it, be sure I would attract questioners to whom you'd
have to give account."
"Account were easy given. I should declare you were a mad woman
committed to my charge."
"More perjury!"
"Nay, there is truly some madness in a woman's taking vengeance into her
own small hands."
She answered nothing, and presently they returned to the coach. Captain
Rumney stood pensively by his horse, his gaze averted, as if he thought
of the past or the far away. He now looked mildly up, and mounted. The
other robbers were already on their horses, Bottle at their head.
Mistress Hazlehurst let Hal lift her into the coach. Francis followed.
Marryott then whistled for Anthony, and got into the saddle.
"The snow falls thicker and thicker," remarked Captain Rumney, in a
bland, sociable tone, while the caravan waited for the Puritan.
As soon as Anthony was in place, Hal motioned to Bottle, at whose word
the robbers, with whip and rein, set their horses in motion. The harness
strained, the coach creaked, the wheels turned reluctantly in the snow.
The procession moved forward a short distance; then, suddenly, there was
a splitting sound, a rear wheel fell inward, and the adjacent part of
the coach dropped heavily to the ground. The vehicle, thereupon, was
still, halting the horses with a violent jerk.
Anthony Underhill leaped from his saddle, and turned over the loose
wheel. A single glance revealed that the axle had been, within a very
short time past, cut nearly through with a saw.
Anthony looked at Master Marryott, who gazed at the axle with a
singularly self-communing, close-mouthed expression. All was very clear
to Master Marryott; a train of events had rushed through his mind in an
eye's twinkling: Mistress Hazlehurst's subjugation of Captain Rumney by
the use of her eyes; the nocturnal visit of her page to the robber in
the single opportunity afforded by Hal's movements; the walk in which
she had drawn Hal from the coach at a time when Anthony was on guard and
Kit Bottle concerned with the horses. A few words would have sufficed
for the message borne by Francis to Rumney, such as, "My mistress
desires you to wreck the coach; she will make an opportunity." She had
not asked Rumney to rescue her by force, for he might prove a worse
captor than her present one. She had not asked him to injure the horses
during the night, for the watch kept by Hal might prevent that, or the
robber might be unwilling to sacrifice his own animals. What she sought
was delay for the coming of Barnet; not an open revolt of the robbers,
which might be so victorious as to put her at their mercy. And Rumney
had obeyed her to the letter; had, doubtless, after receiving her
message, searched the outhouses for a suitable tool; and probably
carried at the present moment, beneath his leather jerkin, the hand-saw
with which, during Hal's walk with Mistress Hazlehurst, he had severed
the axle.
But, whatever lay concealed under his jerkin or his skull, Captain
Rumney was now looking down at the wheel with a most surprised, puzzled,
curious, how-in-God's-name-could-this-have-come-to-pass expression of
face.
It was but the early morning of the fourth day of the flight. Could Hal
but defer the inevitable break with his ally, for this day and another!
Until the five days were up, an open breach with, or secret flight from,
these robbers, meant the risk of either his mission or her safety. For
such break or flight might leave her in their hands. This horrible issue
could be provided against only by Hal's consigning her to protection in
some town or some gentleman's house; but such provision he dared not
make till his mission was accomplished, lest she defeat that mission by
disclosures that would either cause his own seizure or raise doubts in
Barnet as to his identity.
Decidedly, patience was the proper virtue here, and the best policy was
that of temporizing.
"'Tis a curious smooth break," said Hal, with an indescribable something
in his voice for the benefit of Anthony, and of Kit, who had ridden back
to see what stayed the coach. "But I have seen wood break so, when decay
hath eaten a straight way through it. Mistress, I rejoice to see you are
not hurt by the sudden jar."
He spoke to her through the coach doorway. Both she and Francis were
sitting quite undisturbed. The jar had, in fact, not been sudden to
them. As Hal knew, they had expected the breakdown. But his dissembling
must be complete.
"Here's delay!" put in Captain Rumney, most sympathetically vexed.
"Yes," said Marryott, very dismally, as if bereft of hope. His wisest
course lay in holding the plotters passive by making them think they had
already accomplished enough. If Mistress Hazlehurst supposed that
sufficient delay was now obtained, she would not further instigate
Rumney. And without instigation Rumney was not likely to invite open
warfare at a place only two miles from Keighley. In fact, he would not,
of his own initiative, have chosen a spot so near a town, for causing
the breakdown, which might result in tumult. He would have waited for a
more solitary neighborhood. He was of no mind for needlessly chancing
any kind of violent contact with the authorities. Mistress Hazlehurst,
not divining his feelings on this point, had created the opportunity at
this spot, and he had taken the risk. But he was well content that the
supposed Sir Valentine accused him not. In roads more remote, accusation
might be positively welcome; but not in close vicinity to a centre of
law and order.
With a kind of vague, general sense of what Captain Rumney's mental
attitude must be, Marryott felt that he need fear no interruption to
the plan his mind now formed, in a moment's time, for an early
resumption of the flight. But he did not communicate this plan to any
but Anthony, who alone was necessary to its inauguration. Even Bottle
was kept in the dark, in order that Rumney might not find, in being
excepted from a council of leaders, a pretext for subsequent complaint.
As for his instructions to the Puritan, Hal gave them very quickly, in
whispers, leaning down from his saddle to approach more nearly the
other's ear.
Anthony, having listened without speech or sign, remounted his horse,
rode to the house at which the breakfast had been obtained, and made a
few brief inquiries of the man who came to the door.
The result of his questions was evidently not satisfactory; for he rode
from the door, shaking his head in the negative to Master Marryott; and
forthwith cantered off through the falling snow, toward Keighley.
Bottle, who had sat his horse in silent observation of these movements,
as had Rumney also, now glanced at Hal as if to question the propriety
of sending the Puritan away.
"Fear not," said Hal, reassuringly. "If he see thy friend Barnet ere he
find what he seeks, he will drop all and come back a-flying. And then we
shall meet Barnet, or dodge him, in what manner we must!"
It has been told that Marryott was always prepared, as a last resource,
to use his forces in resistance to the pursuivant. A close meeting was
to be avoided to the utmost, however; not only for its uncertainty of
issue to the immediate participants, but for its likelihood of informing
Barnet that the pursued man was not Sir Valentine. In the event of that
disclosure, Hal saw safety for his mission in one desperate course; that
was, to kill or disable the pursuivant and all his men. But such a feat
of arms was barely within possibility, a fact which made Master Hal
extremely unwilling that matters should come to an encounter. Therefore
he groaned and fretted inwardly during the minutes of inaction that
followed Anthony's departure. He sought relief from thoughts of a
possible combat with his pursuers, in following out his plan for his
forward movement; and saw with joy that the very method he had chosen
for going on with his prisoner was the better adapted to his bearing her
safely off from Rumney in case of a conflict with that gentleman.
"Have your men take their horses from the coach. Captain Rumney," Hal
had said very soon after Anthony had departed. The words were spoken
lightly, not as if they accorded with a plan, but as if they indeed had
no other inspiration than was shown when Hal added, "'Tis no use now
keeping them hitched to this moveless heap of lumber."
Prompt obedience had been given to an order so suggestive of greater
delay. And now the robbers idly sat their horses, jesting, railing at
one another, grumbling, and some of them wondering in dull discontent
whither in the fiend's name they were bound. Anne and her page kept
their places in the derelict vehicle, withholding their thoughts. Bottle
and Rumney rode up and down, saying little. They were old soldiers, and
used to waiting. Moreover, in the days of slow transit, patience was a
habit, especially with those who travelled.
At last Anthony's figure reappeared, rising and falling in the whirling
snow as his movements obeyed those of his horse. His manner showed that
he did not bear any tidings of Barnet. He brought with him an old
pillion and a collection of battered hunting-horns, the former behind
his saddle, the latter all slung upon a single cord. It was to procure
these things that he had gone back to Keighley, where there were
saddlers, innkeepers, hostlers, smiths, and others from whom such
articles were to be had. Hal's companions looked with curiosity at these
acquisitions.
Marryott now ordered both Anthony and Kit to dismount. He then had the
horse formerly ridden by Francis led back to the coach doorway. Here he
caused Bottle to hold the animal, and Anthony to adjust the pillion
behind the saddle thereon.
"Now, mistress," said Hal, when this was done, "pray let me aid you to
the pillion."
From her seat in the coach she did not move, nor made she the smallest
answer. She merely cast a look at Captain Rumney.
Hal saw the need of swift action; delay would give her mute appeal to
the robber time to take effect. Summary proceedings would bewilder him.
"Tom Cobble, hold my horse," he said, and was afoot in an instant. In
another, he was inside the coach, raising Mistress Hazlehurst bodily
from her seat, and conveying her out of the doorway to the pillion,
which was not too high or far to permit his placing her upon it. Taken
quite by surprise, she found herself on horseback ere she thought to
brace herself for physical resistance.
"The cord, Anthony," called Hal. The Puritan threw it to him, having
already unfastened it from the hunting-horns. Before Mistress Hazlehurst
had time to think of sliding from the pillion to the ground. Hal had her
waist twice encircled by the cord, of which he retained both ends. He
then, from the coach doorway, mounted the saddle in front of her,
brought the rope's ends together before him, joined them in a knot, and
let Kit Bottle lead the horse a few paces forward so that his prisoner
might not impede matters by seizing hold of the coach.
"And now the boy, Anthony. Carry him on your saddle-bow," said
Marryott. The Puritan, reaching into the coach with both arms, laid hold
of the page, and placed him on the saddle-bow; then, at a gesture,
mounted behind him.
"Take one of the horns, Kit," was Hal's next command. "Give one to me,
one to Anthony, one to Captain Rumney, and the other to Tom Cobble. John
Hatch, lead the spare horse. And now all to your saddles. Kit, ride at
the head. Anthony, you shall go at my right hand; Tom Cobble, at my
left. Captain Rumney shall choose his place. And heed this, all of you:
When I sound this horn, all ye that have like instruments, blow your
loudest; the rest, halloo your lustiest; and every mother's son set his
horse a-galloping till I call halt, taking heed to keep together. And
now, forward!"
A minute later, the cavalcade was moving through the downcoming flakes,
leaving the wrecked coach to bury itself in the snow.
Mistress Hazlehurst could not but see her captor's reason for the order
of which a blast from his horn was to be the signal. Now that she was no
longer concealed in the coach, it would be easier--the temptation would
be greater--for her to make an outcry when passing habitations. The
noise of the horns and of the hallooing would drown the words she might
utter, and the galloping would rob her gesticulations of their intended
effect. The conduct of the whole party would strike beholders as the
sportive ebullition of a company of merry blades bent on astonishing the
natives; and any cries or motions she might make would seem, in the
flash of time while they might be witnessed, but of a piece with the
behavior of her boisterous companions. There were roysterers of the
gentler sex in those days,--witness Mary Frith, otherwise "Moll
Cutpurse," who was indeed a very devil of a fellow.[28] Such roaring
women were not of Mistress Hazlehurst's quality; but who would have time
to discern her quality in the brief while of the company's mad transit
through such small towns as lay before them?
It was less clear to her why her enemy should have placed her on the
same horse with himself, when he might have bound her upon another, of
which he could have retained hold of the bridle. But the case was thus:
Though a possible contest with Rumney or Barnet might result in Hal's
own personal escape, such a contest might, were she on another horse,
enable her to free herself, and either make disclosures fatal to Hal's
mission, or fall prisoner to the robber. But, she being on his horse,
and unable to act independently of him, Hal's escape would leave her
still his captive. That escape he must, then, contrive to make. He thus
simplified his course in the event of an encounter; twined two threads
into one; united two separate lines of possible befalling--his
line and hers--so that they might be determined by a single,
concentrated exertion of his own prowess.
[Illustration: "THE BRAZEN NOTES CLOVE THE AIR."]
Should matters so shape that her life be endangered by her position, Hal
might, at the last moment, sever with his dagger the cord that bound her
to him. She, being now deprived of weapons, could not do this.
As for Francis, stealthy and resolute as recent occurrences had shown
him to be, there was nothing to fear from him while he bestrode the
saddle-bow of Anthony Underhill.
It was eight o'clock when they started from the abandoned coach. A
little after nine they passed through Skipton. The town was half
invisible through the falling snow, which, as it came, was the sport of
the same wind that made casements rattle and weather-cocks creak, and
street-folk muffle themselves and pay small heed to passing riders.
To test his device and his men, Master Marryott, when half way through
the town, sounded his horn and gave his horse the spur. The response,
from all but Captain Rumney, was instant and hearty. The brazen notes
clove the air, the men emitted a score of unearthly yells, the horses
dashed forward; and the clamor, which caused the few snow-blinded
outdoor folk to stare blinkingly, might well have awakened the ghosts of
the ancient castle of the Cliffords. But neither ghosts nor townspeople
stayed the turbulent strangers.
When Hal ordered a cessation, outside the town, he found that the men
were in the better humor for the little outlet to their pent-up
deviltry; all with the exception of Rumney, who had galloped with the
rest, but in silence.
Rumney had indeed been moody since the abandonment of the coach. He had
kept his place behind Marryott, in full range of the eyes of the lady on
the pillion, who, as she sat sidewise, could look back at him with ease.
Her glances, eloquent of a kind of surprise at his inaction, gave him an
ill opinion of himself which he soon burned to revenge upon some one.
And his feelings were not sweetened by his men's good humor over an
incident from which he had excluded himself.
Of the roads from Skipton, Marryott chose that which he thought would
take him soonest into the North Riding. The cavalcade had gone perhaps
four miles upon this road, when, suddenly, Captain Rumney called out:
"Halt, lads, and close in upon this quarry!"
His men checked their horses, some with surprise, some as if the order
might have been expected. They drew their blades, too,--blades of every
variety,--and turned their horses about.
Captain Bottle instantly urged his steed back toward Hal, charging
through the confusion of plunging horses in true cavalry fashion.
Marryott himself wheeled half around to face Rumney. Anthony Underhill,
with Francis on his saddle-bow, grimly menaced the robbers who had
turned.
"What means this, Captain Rumney?" said Hal, quietly. Every sword in the
company was now unsheathed.
"It means that I cry, stand and deliver!" replied the robber, finding
all needful confidence and courage in the very utterance of the habitual
challenge. He felt himself now in his own role, and feared nothing.
"Is it not foolish," answered Marryott, without raising his voice, "to
risk your skin thus, for the sake of money that would be yours to-morrow
in payment of service?"
"To the devil with your money,--though I'll have that, too, ere all's
done! First deliver me the lady!"
"I am much more like to deliver you to the flames below!" replied Hal.
"Say you so! Upon him, boys!" cried Rumney, raising a pistol, which he
had furtively got ready to fire.
Two things occurred at the same moment: Anthony Underhill got his sword
engaged with that of the nearest robber who had moved to obey Rumney's
order; and Master Marryott struck Rumney's pistol aside with his rapier,
so that it discharged itself harmlessly into the falling snow.
Hal's next movement was to turn Rumney's sword-point with his dagger,
which he held in the same hand with his rein. Behind him, Mistress
Hazlehurst clung to her pillion, in a state of mind that may be
imagined. In front of Anthony Underhill. Francis, the page, made himself
small, to avoid a possible wild thrust from the fellow that contested
with the Puritan.
By this time Kit Bottle had reached Anthony's side.
"What, ye jolly bawcocks!" he cried to the robbers, his sword-point
raised aloft, as if he awaited the result of his words ere choosing a
victim for it. "Will ye follow this cheap rascal Rumney 'gainst
gentlemen? He'll prove traitor to you all, an ye trust him long enough;
as he did to me in the Low Countries! Mr. Edward Moreton, and honest
John Hatch, and good Oliver Bunch, I call on you stand by true men!"
"And Tom Cobble!" shouted Hal, without looking back from his combat with
Rumney, which, although it was now one of rapiers, they continued to
wage on horseback. "You're my man, I wot! A raw rustical rogue like
this, is not fit for London lads to follow!"
"What say ye, mates?" cried Tom Cobble. "I am for the gentleman!"
"And I!" quoth John Hatch, stoutly; Ned Moreton, airily; Oliver Bunch,
timidly; and two or three others.
"A murrain on gentlemen!" roared a burly fellow, and a chorus of
approving oaths and curses showed that a majority of Rumney's men
remained faithful to their old leader.
"Good, my hearts!" cried their captain, his brow clearing of the cloud
that had risen at the first defection. "There shall be the more pickings
for you that are staunch! I'll kill every deserter!"
"Look to't you be not killed yourself!" quoth Master Marryott, leaning
forward to keep the area of steel-play far from Mistress Hazelhurst.
Rumney had exchanged his emptied pistol for a dagger, and he imitated
Hal in using it with the hand that held his rein. In rapier-and-dagger
fights, the long weapon was used for thrusting, the short one for
parrying. Such contests were not for horseback. When mounted enemies
met, so armed, they would ordinarily dismount and fight afoot. But
Marryott was determined not to separate himself from his prisoner, and
Rumney chose to remain in readiness for pursuit in case his antagonist
should resort to flight.
So this unique duel went on,--a single combat with rapier and dagger,
on horseback, one of the contestants sharing his horse with a lady on a
pillion behind him! The combat remained single because Rumney's men had
all they could do in defending themselves against the vigorous attack of
Kit Bottle. Anthony Underhill, and the deserters from their own band.
These deserters, knowing that the defeat of the side they had taken
would leave them at the mercy of the Rumney party, fought with that fury
which comes of having no alternative but victory or death. There was not
an idle or a shirking sword to be found on either side. Each man chose
his particular antagonist, and when one combatant had worsted his
opponent he found another or went to the aid of a comrade. In the narrow
roadway, in blinding flakes, and with mingled cries of pain, rage, and
elation, these riders plied their weapons one against another, until
blood dripped in many places on the fallen snow that was tramped by the
rearing horses.
The strange miniature battle, fought in a place out of sight of human
habitation, and with no witnesses but the two prisoners so dangerously
placed for viewing it, lasted for ten minutes. Then Master Marryott,
whose adroitness, sureness, and swiftness had begun to appall and
confuse Rumney, ran his rapier through the latter's sword-arm.
With a loud exclamation, the robber dropped the arm to his side, and
backed his horse out of reach with his left hand.
But Hal, with a fierce cry "Talk you of killing?" spurred his horse
forward as if to finish with the rascal. This was a pretence, but it
worked its purpose.
"Quarter," whimpered the robber captain, pale with fear.
"Then call off your hounds!" replied Hal, hotly, checking his horse.
"I will," answered the trembling Rumney, quickly. "Lads, a truce! Put up
your swords, curse you!"
His men were not sorry to get this order, nor their opponents to hear it
given. The fight had gone too evenly to please either side, and
wounds--some of them perhaps destined to prove fatal--had been nearly
equally distributed. Hal's adherents ceased fighting when their foes
did, Kit Bottle being the last, and probably the only reluctant one, to
desist.
"And now you will turn back, Master Rumney," said Marryott, in a hard,
menacing tone, "and find another road to travel! Take with you the
knaves that stood by you. The others, an they choose, shall remain my
men, in my pay. Come, you rogues, march!"
Master Marryott backed to the side of the road, that Rumney's followers
might pass. They did so, readily enough, those who were unhorsed being
lifted to saddles by their comrades. Until the two parties were
distinctly separated, and several paces were between them, every weapon
and every eye on either side remained on the alert to meet treachery.
All the deserters from Rumney stayed with Hal.
"'God bless you, Ancient Rumney,'" called out Kit Bottle, slightly
altering a remembered speech from a favorite play, as the robber turned
his horse's head toward Skipton. "'You scurvy, lousy knave. God bless
you!'"
Rumney and his men rode for some distance without answer; Hal and his
company, motionless, looking after them. Suddenly, when he was beyond
easy overtaking, the robber leader turned in his saddle, and shouted
back, vindictively:
"I scorn you, Kit Bottle! You are no better than an Irish footboy! And
your master there is a woman-stealing dog, that I'll be quits with yet.
He's no gentleman, neither, but a scurvy fencing-master in false
feathers!"
"Shall I give chase and make him eat his words?" asked Kit of Master
Marryott.
"Nay, the cur that whines for mercy, and receives it, and then snarls
back at a safe distance, is too foul for thy hands, Kit! Let those
fellows on the ground be put on horses and supported till we find a safe
place for them. I'll not abandon any that stood by me. And then,
onward! Madam, I trust you were not incommoded. Your page, I see, is
safe."
Mistress Hazlehurst deigned no answer. Her feelings were wrapped in a
cloak of outward composure.
The wounded men were soon made safe upon horses, and the northward
journey was again in progress.
"I thank heaven we are rid of Captain Rumney!" said Hal to Kit Bottle,
who now rode beside him. Anthony having taken the lead.
"I would thank heaven more heartily, an I were sure we _were_ rid of
him!" growled Kit, blinking at the snowflakes.