ROGER BARNET CONTINUES TO SMOKE TOBACCO.
"The best man best knows patience."--_Thierry and Theodoret._
The day dragged on,--grayest of gray Sundays. The snowfall ceased, but
the sky remained ashen, and the wind still moaned intermittently, though
with subdued and failing voice. In the great, silent house, faint creaks
had the startling effect of detonations, and the flapping of tapestry in
the wind seemed fraught with mysterious omen.
Marryott, in the course of his next round of the mansion, told the men
of the loss of the provisions. Some of them had already known of it. No
complaint was uttered. The men replied with a half respectful, half
familiar jest, or with good-humored expression of willingness to fast
awhile. Fortunately, the supply of water was such as to obviate any near
dread of the tortures of thirst.
When he went to the room adjoining Mistress Hazlehurst's chamber,
Marryott found Tom, Francis, and the robber, all three quiescent under
the ministrations of Oliver Bunch. Anthony Underhill, seated on a trunk
that he had placed on the end of the prostrate ladder, was observing the
Sabbath by singing to himself a psalm. Scarce audible as was his voice,
it still had something of that whine which the early English Puritans,
like the devoutest of the French Huguenots, put into their vocal
worship, and from which some think the nasal twang of the Puritans' New
England descendants is derived.
Mistress Hazlehurst either was, or wished to seem, asleep; for when
Marryott knocked softly upon her half open door, that he might more
courteously explain to her the lack of food, she gave no answer.
He, thereupon, sent Kit Bottle to the oriel window to sound Roger
Barnet's mind toward supplying the prisoner, who was indeed to be
considered the pursuivant's ally, with food.
Kit put the necessary question, taking care to show no more of his
person than was needful, and to keep his eyes upon the firearms of the
pursuivant and the two guards in the court.
But Roger Barnet, who still sat smoking with a kind of hard, surly
impassibility, made no movement as to his pistols. Neither did he show a
thought of ordering his men to fire. He evinced a certain grim
satisfaction at the evidence that the besieged had no provisions. He
then expressed a suspicion that Kit was using the lady's name in order
to obtain food for his own party, and said that if Sir Valentine
Fleetwood desired the lady not to hunger, Sir Valentine might set her
free. He, Barnet, would provide her with an escort to some neighboring
inn or gentleman's house.
But Marryott, who was listening unseen at Kit's elbow, dared not yet
risk her describing himself as Sir Valentine Fleetwood to the
pursuivant; and so he prompted Kit to reply that the lady was too ill to
go at present from the house. To which Roger, between vast puffs of
smoke, tranquilly replied that he feared the lady must for the present
go hungry.
Afire with wrath at this stolid churlishness, Hal caused Kit to remind
Barnet that the lady had come into her present case through aiding the
pursuivant himself. Roger answered that he had not requested the lady's
assistance. At Marryott's further whispered orders, Kit informed Barnet
that, but for her work, the latter should not at that moment have had
Sir Valentine surrounded. Roger replied that he had only Kit's word for
that; moreover, what mattered it? He was not responsible for the lady's
ill fortune, even if she were creditable with his good fortune. In
short, and by God's light, he would not let any food enter that house
unless he and his men went in with it!
"When your bellies will no more away with their emptiness, open the
door and let us in," he added, phlegmatically, and replaced his pipe in
his mouth as if the last word had been said.
"Nay, thou swinish rogue," said Kit, "we're better taught than to leave
doors open in March weather!" He then bombarded his old-time comrade of
Walsingham's day with hard names. Barnet showed no resentment, but
continued to smoke stolidly. At last, when his reviler had well-nigh
exhausted the vocabulary of Thersites, Roger began to finger
abstractedly the butt of one of his pistols; at which gentle intimation,
Kit suddenly disappeared from the window.
"There is no help for it," said he to Marryott. "She must starve with
the rest of us unless you set her free."
"That I must not do till Tuesday morning," said Hal, with an inward
sigh. He went from the gallery, and told Francis, for Mistress
Hazlehurst's information should she inquire, of the failure of his
attempt to obtain food for her. She still slept, or feigned sleep.
Marryott then newly assigned the posts to be guarded, dividing the
company into two watches, one headed by himself, the other by Bottle.
The latter took the first period of duty. The men who were thus for a
time relieved were prompt to assuage their thirst, though water was a
beverage unusual to them; then they stretched themselves on the rushes
in the hall to sleep. Hal also slept.
At evening, being awakened by Kit, he and his quota of men arose to do
sentinel duty during the first half of the night.
"Is Barnet still yonder?" he asked Kit, before leaving the hall.
"No; he has set Hudsdon in's place. Roger has divided his troop into
watches. He and some of his men have made their beds in the outhouses.
Hudsdon and the rest have planted torches in a line around the house.
There's not an ell's distance of the mansion's outside, from ground to
second story, that cannot be seen by the torch-light. The men are posted
beyond the line, out of our sight; only here and there you may catch now
and then the light of a slow-match that some fellow blows. If we made a
sortie from the house into their torch-light, they would mow us down
with muskets and arquebuses from the dark."
Marryott sat out his watch in a partly torpid state of mind. The
deception that Mistress Hazlehurst had practised upon him, though he
acknowledged an avowed enemy's and unwilling prisoner's right to
practise it, had struck down his heart, benumbed it, robbed it of hope
and of its zest for life. He thought of nothing but present trifles--the
writhing of the flames in the fireplace, the snoring of the sleepers on
the hall floor--and his chances of accomplishing his mission. All
things, he felt, could be endured,--all but failure in the task he had
so far carried toward success. Regarding his life, which indeed seemed
to be doomed, he was apathetic.
During the second half of the night, Marryott slumbered, Bottle watched.
Dawn found Roger Barnet again at the fountain's edge, again smoking.
But, as Kit observed while furtively inspecting him through a window, he
puffed a little more vehemently, was somewhat petulant in his motions,
more often changed position. Bottle, from having known him of old, and
from his slight lameness, took it that he was in some pain.
His injured leg was, indeed, a seat of great torment; but of this, being
stoical as well as taciturn, the frowning man of iron gave no other sign
than the tokens of irritation noticed by Kit.
"I'm afeard Roger will be, later, of a mind to hasten matters," said the
captain. "Peradventure his tobacco is falling low."
"I pray 'twill last till the morrow," said Marryott.
This morning (Monday) the sky was clear, but it was a cold sun that
shone down upon the world of snow around beleaguered Foxby Hall.
Marryott was on the watch till noon. Then, Kit having taken his place,
and before lying down to sleep, he went to see if Mistress Hazlehurst
had aught to request. He felt that, though his position as her captor
was one of necessity, it nevertheless required of him a patient
attention to all complaints and reproaches she might make.
But she made none. To his inquiry, spoken after a gentle knock upon her
door, she answered that she desired of him nothing under heaven but to
be left alone. If she must starve, she would choose to starve not before
spectators. He informed her that he intended to give her, on the morrow,
her freedom, as the royal pursuivant had offered her an escort and might
be trusted to treat a lady with respect. To this she made no reply. Hal
thereupon went away.
When he was awakened to resume guard duty, at evening, he learned from
Kit that the afternoon had been without occurrence. Roger Barnet had
continued to show signs of an ailing body, and hence of an ailing
temper, but had not deviated from his policy of waiting. The men in the
house were very hungry; they had ceased jesting about their enforced
fast, and had betaken themselves to dumb endurance. Hal was made aware
by his own pangs of the stomach, his own feverish weakness of the body,
how they must be suffering, though only two days of abstinence had
passed.
The precautions of the besiegers this evening were like those of the
preceding night. Marryott looked more than once, through narrow
openings in the windows, at the torches lighting up redly the snow that
stretched away from the walls of the mansion.
Some time after dark, while Marryott was pacing the hall, Kit Bottle
suddenly awoke, and after gazing around a few moments, said, quietly:
"Methinks, lad, 'tis eight o'clock, or after."
"'Tis so, I think," replied Hal, softly.
"Then 'tis full six days since we rode from Sir Valentine Fleetwood's
gate."
"Ay, just six days."
"Then thy work is done, boy!"
"'Tis done, old Kit; and thanks to thee and Anthony, with your true
hearts, strong bodies, and shrewd heads!"
"Thou'rt a valiant and expert gentleman, Hal; beshrew me else!"
Whereupon the old soldier turned upon his side, and slept again, and Hal
looked dreamily into the fire.
Their words had been no louder than whispers. Nor was Hal's feeling
aught like the bursting elation, the triumph that would shout, the joy
that intoxicates. It was but a gentle transition from suspense to
relief, from anxiety to ease of mind; a mild but permeating glow of
satisfaction; a sweet consciousness of having done a hard task, a
consciousness best expressed by a single sigh of content, a faint smile
of self-applause.
At midnight, giving place again to Kit, Marryott sank into a troubled
sleep, in which he dreamed of juicy beef, succulent ham, every kind of
plump fowl, well basted, and the best wines of France, Spain. Italy, and
the Rhine. He woke to tortures of the stomach, and the news that Roger
Barnet was still smoking, but peevishly walking, despite his lameness of
leg, to and fro in the courtyard.
"I tell thee, Hal," said Bottle, after imparting this information, "we
may look to see things afoot soon! If Roger is a devil of pertinacity
when he is upon the chase, and a devil of patience when he waits, he is
a devil of activity when his body ails overmuch!"
"We shall be the sooner forced, then, to set our lives upon a cast!"
"Ay, and better work losing them, than stretching them out to the
anguish of our bellies! This fasting is an odious business. The men are
chewing the fire-wood and their leather jerkins."
"Have they complained?" asked Hal.
"Not a dog among 'em! These be choice rascals all! They bear hunger with
no more words than dumb beasts. They'll starve with thee, or die with
thee, to the last knave of them!"
Marryott looked silently at Bottle; and saw in his face the very
dog-like fidelity he described in the others. He knew what
uncomplaining, unpretending steadfastness there was in Anthony
Underhill, too.
"Brave hearts!" murmured Hal, and the next instant he had taken a
resolution.
"Is Roger Barnet a keeper of his word?" he asked.
"When he hath not overmuch to lose by it," replied Kit, wondering at the
question.
"If, on condition of his letting mine innocent followers go free, I
proposed to shorten his task by giving myself up, and he agreed thereto,
would he keep that agreement?"
"But, God's death, Hal, thou'lt propose no such thing!"
"Thou'lt propose it for me; till all is done I must not show my face.
And thou'lt not name me as Sir Valentine Fleetwood, but speak of me
merely as the gentleman you serve. So when Barnet discovers I am not the
knight, he will find himself still bound by his word to the condition."
"But old Kit will never be go-between to buy his life with thy giving
thyself up!"
"'Troth, thou wilt! For, look you, since I must in any case be taken,
why need also my men suffer? Wilt rob me of my one consolation, the
saving of my faithful followers? Wilt send me entirely sad of heart to
London? Wilt not let me cheer myself with knowledge of having done this
little deed befitting a gentleman? Have I not full right to get my
self-approval by this act? Wouldst thou hinder my using the one right by
which I may somewhat comfort myself? Thou wilt do as I bid thee, old
Kit; else I swear on this crossed hilt I will go forth at once, and
surrender myself the more unhappily for that I may not save my men!"
"Nay, Hal, softly! If the thing lies so to thy heart, 'tis not old Kit
shall go against thy wish. But I have the right of giving myself up with
thee. Save the rest an thou wilt, I shall not be sorry. But let Kit
Bottle attend thee still, to the end of it!"
"Now thou talkest arrant foolishness, Kit! For look you, if thou'rt
free, canst thou not serve me to the better effect? Consider how many
miles and days it is to London. Once I am this fellow's prisoner, and
seem to have no will or spirit left, may not my guards grow heedless? An
thou art free, riding after me to London, who can say what chance may
not occur for rescue and escape? Let me but save thee and these true
fellows by giving myself up; then may we look for means of saving myself
on the journey to London." Hal said this but to induce Kit to accept
freedom with the others if it could be obtained, and it seemed to make
the desired impression.
"Why, there is something in that," said Kit, thoughtfully. "But we have
been wasting talk. Roger Barnet, now that thy taking is but matter of
time, will not make terms. He is no man for concessions or half-way
meetings."
"But he hath much to gain by my offer: the time saved, the certainty of
taking his man alive and without loss to his own party, the greater ease
of carrying one prisoner than many to London. He should be glad of
pretext to be rid of the underlings."
"Truly said, in sooth. But the nature of the man is against making
treaty with an opponent, e'en though to his own advantage."
Marryott thought for a moment. Then he said:
"Let him not seem to make treaty with his opponent. Let the treaty be
with my seeming betrayers. This will better accord with his nature,
methinks. My men shall offer to give me up to him, in purchase of their
own freedom. So will he regard my men as choosing to become his allies,
and he will think that through them he gets the better of their master;
he will have justification for letting them go free."
"By my troth, thou'rt a knower of men, Hal! Roger would be ashamed to
profit by a treaty with his enemy, but not by treachery of that enemy's
following. There'll be some relish in fooling him thus!"
"Then set straightways about it. Speak to him from the oriel,
stealthily, as befits the seeming treason."
"I hate even to seem traitor to thee, Hal; but 'tis for thy purposes,
and to make a gull of Roger Barnet."
With which the captain mounted the stairs leading to the gallery,
leaving Marryott waiting by the fire.
Kit had the skill of gesture and grimace, to convey across the
quadrangle to his one-time comrade that secret things were to be told,
and that a truce, if granted, would not on his part be violated. Barnet,
who could rely upon the steel he wore and the pistols he carried, as
well as on Kit's pantomimic word of honor, strode boldly over to a place
beneath the window. With an appearance of great caution, Kit asked him,
on behalf of himself and his comrades, not of the gentleman they served,
what would be done with them if they were taken. Roger lightly answered
that he would see them hanged. This led naturally to the broaching of
Kit's terms.
The ensuing conversation was of some length, and carried on mostly by
Kit, who skilfully put before the pursuivant's mind the advantages to be
gained by accepting the offer. Now, as Barnet's warrant called for Kit's
supposed employer only, as Barnet had been so many days from London, as
the lameness of his leg tried his patience, as the mansion looked
impregnable, and as he was loath to resort to local assistance in
storming it, it really seemed folly for him to reject an important bird
in hand for the doubtful satisfaction of bagging a number of
insignificant birds who might prove only a burden to him. He held out,
however, until he could bring himself to relinquish the cherished hope
of conducting his old friend Bottle to the gallows.
It was at last agreed that Kit and his comrades should deliver over
their commander, disarmed and with wrists bound, at the main door,
within half an hour.
As soon as Marryott was informed of this, he summoned all the men (save
Kit, to whom was assigned the guardianship of Mistress Hazlehurst's
chamber for the while), and told them of the agreement. They stared at
him and at one another with little show of feeling, and in silence,
excepting Anthony, who muttered:
"I had as lief I had been left out of the purchase."
"Go to Mistress Hazlehurst's door, Anthony," said Marryott, "and send
hither Captain Bottle, that he may tie my hands and deliver me forth.
And conduct the lady hither, that she may go forth at the same time. I
think she will not delay, for you will tell her she is to have her
freedom."
He then divided his money among the men, that they might shift for
themselves after his surrender; obtained the promise of the able-bodied
to care for the wounded; and finally ordered them to remove the defences
of the door. Hal had previously furnished Kit's purse; Anthony had his
own supply of coin.
When Mistress Hazlehurst came down the stairs, a little pale and haggard
from her fast, but no less beautiful of eye and outline, and with no
less clearness of skin, Marryott stood already bound, Kit at his side,
the men waiting silently in the background. She noticed that Hal's hands
were behind his back, but could not make sure whether they were tied.
Slightly puzzled at the scene, she looked back at Anthony as for an
explanation.
Kit Bottle motioned one of the men to open the door; he then indicated
to Mistress Hazlehurst, by a gesture, that she might pass out. She did
so, in some wonder. Francis, whose head was bandaged, followed her.
Anthony stopped at the other side of Marryott than that on which Kit
Bottle was.
Beyond the porch outside, and facing the door, stood Roger Barnet;
several men were in line on either hand of the way. The pursuivant
looked at Anne as if she were not the one he expected. He made way for
her to pass, however; but as soon as she had done so, she turned and
looked curiously back at the open door.
Forth came the supposed Sir Valentine Fleetwood, walking listlessly,
his hands still behind his back. Kit and Anthony grasping him by either
shoulder.
"Take your man, master pursuivant," said Bottle, huskily. He and the
Puritan then stopped, and seemed to thrust their prisoner slightly
forward for Barnet's acceptance; but they still held his shoulders.
Barnet, whose left hand clasped a document, took a step toward the
prisoner, who perforce remained motionless. Then the pursuivant paused,
and stared at Hal with a mixture of bewilderment and slow-gathering
dismay. The armed men craned their necks to see the object of their long
pursuit.
"Why," said Barnet, his voice faltering for once, "this is not the man!"
Mistress Hazlehurst became acutely attentive.
"'Tis the gentleman we have served these last six days," replied Kit
Bottle, with great composure.
"God's life!" cried Barnet, having recovered full vocal energy, "there
is a scurvy trick here, to give Sir Valentine Fleetwood chance of
leaving this house while I'm befooled! But 'twill not serve! All sides
are watched! Into the house, you four; search every corner, and drag out
the fox!"
The men to whom Barnet spoke hastened to obey, leaving four of their
comrades with their leader.
"They'll find naught, Roger," said Kit. "I swear this gentleman is he
we have been travelling with from Welwyn."
"He says truly, pursuivant!" cried Mistress Hazlehurst, stepping forward
to Barnet's side. "'Tis Sir Valentine Fleetwood, of a surety; for I,
too, have travelled with him these six days."
"I don't gainsay you have travelled with him, lady," said Barnet. "But
if you take him for Sir Valentine Fleetwood, either you know not Sir
Valentine as well as I do, or your eyes play you tricks!"
"Nay," put in Marryott, quietly, "blame not others' eyes, man, till your
own eyes never see false!" With which he thrust out his left elbow,
stiffened his neck, and took on what other outward peculiarities he had
caught from Sir Valentine.
"By the foul fiend," said Barnet, in a tone that befitted his dark,
wrathful look, "there has been some kind of vile player's work here!
'Twas a false beard, that night!"
"Ay!" spoke up one of his men. "I have wondered where to place the
gentleman. Your word player sets me right. He is an actor I have seen at
the Globe, and in the ale-houses. I forget his name."
"Is it Marryott?" asked Barnet, remembering what he had learned in
Clown.
"Ay, that's it! I drew him many a pot of beer when I was a tapster."
"Then by the devil's horns," quoth Barnet, irefully, "he hath played his
last part when he hath played upon me, with his false beard and like
devices! If, indeed, you have led me off, Master Marryott, and Sir
Valentine Fleetwood hath fled over seas, by God, it shall go hard but
you die in's place for aiding a traitor! I take you in the queen's name,
Sir Player. Nay, question not my right; I have blank warrants for
emergent use; your name is soon writ; and back to London you shall ride,
with your feet tied 'neath the horse's belly! Mistress, this is part
your doing; for you told me 'twas Sir Valentine passed you i' the road
that night. You have had all your labor for the wrong man, and given the
right one time to 'scape both you and me!"
But his words might have fallen upon the ears of a statue. Anne had
realized in a flash all that words could tell her, and this much more:
that the captured man loved her, and was a prisoner through her use of
his love; and that, even though she had had the resolution to feign
illness,--
Thought failed her, and she stood leaning on the shoulder of her page,
pallor and inertia betokening the utter consternation of her heart.