SPEECH WITHOUT WORDS.
"Her eye discourses; I will answer it."--_Romeo and Juliet._
Late in the afternoon of that day--Tuesday. March 10th--there rode into
Skipton from the north, and took lodging for the night at the principal
inn, a party of horsemen, commanded by a stout, hard-browed,
black-bearded man, and conducting a pale, tired young gentleman whose
hands were tied behind him and whose ankles were fastened with a rope
that passed beneath the body of his led horse.
When the troop had come to a halt, and accommodations, had been
bespoken, the leader caused two of his men to release the prisoner's
legs, but not his hands, and then marched with him, preceded and
followed by guards, to an upper room overlooking the stableyard. Here
four armed men were left with the prisoner, to whom presently supper was
brought. Though without weapons, his wrists were still kept tied; his
food had to be conveyed to his mouth by one of his guards. He might
sleep on the bed when he chose; but asleep or awake he must remain thus
guarded and bound.
Five minutes after the arrival of this troop at the inn, a smaller party
appeared from the same direction. Its chief figure was a weary-looking
young lady, deeply buried in her thoughts, and attended by a youthful
page whose head was bandaged, a boldfaced old fellow, and a lean and
sad-visaged man in sombre garments. This company, finding the first inn
now full, sought and obtained lodging at a smaller one, not far away.
On the journey thither, these two groups of riders had been more than
once in sight of each other. Both Marryott and Barnet had observed that
Captain Bottle and the Puritan were serving Mistress Hazlehurst as
escort,--a circumstance that seemed to the pursuivant quite natural,
since the lady was no friend of Marryott's and the two men were, in
Barnet's belief, Marryott's betrayers. Barnet himself had offered to let
her ride under his protection on the southward journey; but she had
refused, and had watched in silence, with Kit and Anthony, the departure
of the prisoner from Foxby Hall. Whatever arrangement she had made with
the two men must have been made after that departure.
Hal explained matters to himself by the supposition that Kit Bottle and
Anthony, whom she, too, must regard as his betrayers, had offered her
their escort, that they might with less suspicion follow close upon the
heels of his captors toward London. He knew that she was ill supplied in
purse for the homeward journey, and he guessed that she had obtained of
Anthony a loan of money to pay the escort and inn charges. In this
guess, he was right; but it was scarce possible that he should have
divined what other understanding had passed between the lady and his two
adherents.
He was glad, in the dull way in which thought and feeling now worked
within him, that she had found so good an escort. When she had declined
Barnet's offer, he had feared she might unwittingly expose herself to
new danger, though he had believed that Kit and Anthony, knowing his own
wishes, would protect her, in spite of herself, to some gentleman's
house where she might procure both money and servants.
As for the robbers who had shared his siege at Foxby Hall, Hal knew, by
their absence from Mistress Hazlehurst's party, that they had been left
to choose their own ways. The money he had given them would enable them
to transport themselves to distant parts of the kingdom ere Rumney was
likely to traverse again the neighborhood of Foxby Hall.
Hal slept lightly but calmly. His slumber was but half slumber, even as
his waking state was a kind of lethargic dream. He recked not of past,
present, or future.
At dawn breakfast was brought to him and readily eaten. So indifferent
had he become, so little feeling was active in him, so little emotion
was there to affect his physical state, that not even his appetite was
altered; his body led a healthy, normal existence, save for the fatigue
from which it was already recovering, but his mind and heart languished
half inert.
After breakfast the southward road was resumed, with no deviation from
the order of the previous day. Anne's party rode out from the other inn
as Barnet's was passing. Was this mere accident, thought Hal, or was it
by precaution of Kit Bottle?
The way was choked with snow. In some places this had drifted so as to
bury the fences, where it happened--as was rare--that the road was
flanked by such enclosures. In other spots, the earth was swept bare.
The drifting still continued, for, though the day was clear, another
high wind had arisen. It blew the fine, biting crystals into the riders'
faces, reddened their cheeks and eyelids, and seemed to add to the
discomfort of Roger Barnet.
For the sufferings of the pursuivant, due to the use of the wounded leg
when it demanded rest, were now plainly telling upon him. His face was
haggard; under his breath, he was fretful; such manifestations, on the
part of a man so obstinate against the show of pain, meant that he was
in physical agony.
At Halifax, he ordered a rest for dinner. The day being very cold,
Marryott was led to a room in the inn's topmost story, where he dined
with four guards precisely as he had supped at Skipton. Before entering
the town, he had lost sight of Mistress Hazlehurst's party; indeed, it
was not often, on the journey, that he availed himself of some bend of
the road to turn his head and look back.
When he had finished his dinner, Marryott let his glance stray idly
through the window. He had a view of a side lane that ran, apparently,
from a street beneath his room. The lane ended at its junction with
another street. Up and down that other street, so as to cross the end of
the lane at brief intervals, a riderless horse was being led by a boy
whose head was wrapped around with handkerchiefs. Was not the boy
Francis? And why was he exercising a saddled horse in such a place so
far from this inn, not perceptibly near any other? The question dwelt in
Hal's mind for a moment: then fled, at Barnet's summons to horse.
Not till he had covered several miles out of Halifax did Marryott catch
his next glimpse of Anne and her three attendants. They were then at a
good distance behind; but gradually during the afternoon they decreased
the distance,--a natural enough thing to do, for the proximity of
Barnet's martial-looking troop was a protection. That evening both
parties lodged at Barnesley. The state of the roads, and of Barnet's
leg, had forbidden faster progress. It was not quite dark when Hal was
led into the chamber where he was to sup and sleep. He sat down on a
joint-stool by the window.
Ten minutes passed. Awaiting his supper, he was still looking listlessly
out of the window at the darkening evening. Was not that Anthony
Underhill yonder, leading a riderless horse to and fro upon the green
that was visible through a gap in the row of houses opposite the inn? It
was odd that he should haply be repeating in Hal's view at supper-time
the action that Francis had performed in Hal's sight at dinner-time. The
arrival of pickled herrings and ale drew Marryott's eyes from the
window, and his mind from the spectacle.
The next morning, on arising to depart, Marryott by chance beheld, this
time with a touch of wondering amusement, another repetition of the same
performance, with the single difference that now the leader of the horse
was Kit Bottle.
When some hours of the forenoon journey had been spent, Marryott,
looking back, saw with a little surprise that Anne's party was close
behind his own. Barnet rode at his side, leading his horse; half of the
escort rode two and two in front, the other half in the rear. These rear
horsemen intervened between Hal and Anne; but as he ascended the side of
a hollow he could look over the heads behind him to her as she descended
the farther side.
Her glance met his; and in it was a kind of message, which she seemed to
have long awaited the moment for delivering. With all possible eloquence
of eyes and face, she appeared to express apology, a request for pardon,
a wish to serve him! Ere he could assure himself by keener inspection
whether he had read aright the look that had thrilled him out of his
lethargy, he had reached the crest of the ascent, and the men behind him
had closed his view.
Poignantly alive now in mind and heart, he tormented himself for several
miles with conjectures whether her expression had been intentional on
her part or correctly translated on his. This he could best ascertain by
sending her, at the first opportunity, a look in reply.
When he was next in line of sight with her, he glanced back his answer.
It consisted merely of a faint smile, soft and kindly, by which he hoped
to say that he understood, forgave, and loved.
To his unutterable joy, she instantly responded with a smile that was
the echo of his own.
This conversation, carried on so silently and at such distance, but so
decisive and full of import, was of course so conducted that Marryott's
captors suspected nothing of it. A certain curiosity as to whether his
supposed betrayers were following him toward London was natural on the
part of one in his situation, and it accounted, in Barnet's mind, for
his looking back.
At Clown, dining in the very ale-house chamber whence Mistress
Hazlehurst had looked at his detention by the constable's men, Marryott
saw, some way down the lane from which the coach had been drawn, a
riderless horse led back and forth by Francis. It flashed upon him at
last that the continual recurrence of this scene must be more than mere
coincidence.
In the afternoon, Marryott had but one opportunity to exchange looks
with Anne. This was where the road turned sharply in such direction
that, by glancing sidewise and across the back of Barnet's horse, he
could see her through a sparse copse that filled the angle. Her
expression now suggested alertness and craft, as if for his imitation;
and she pointed with her forefinger to the horse ridden by Francis at
her side. The trees cut off his view ere the gesture was complete; but
he understood; it meant, "You will find a horse ready, if you can break
from your guards!"