I was as new to a life of action as an hour-old duckling is to water, and this ironical upset of all my plans left me helpless. The very last man whom I wanted to see Mistress Waynflete was here, his plumed hat sweeping to the floor, triumph on his handsome face and in his easy, languid tones. Indeed, more astonishing than his being here, was his manner and bearing. At Master Dobson's, a natural remark of mine had beaten all his wits out of him. Here his assurance was such that it puzzled me out of action.
"My sergeant, madam," he began, "no mean judge, since he has seen the reigning beauties of half the capitals of Europe, told me to expect a prize, but it is the prize. Master Wheatman, you are not, I am told, as good a judge of cattle as Turnip Townshend, but you are, let me tell you, a better one of women. I understand you know. Both acres and solatium shall be mine in any event. And, dear Margaret, though I do not understand what your haughtiness is doing here alone with my farmer friend, I need hardly say that your devoted servant greets you with all humility."
Again his hat curved in mockery through the air. He replaced it on his head, drew his rapier, with quick turns of his wrist swished the supple blade through the air till it sang, then flashed it out at me like the tongue of an adder, and said, "Sit you still, Farmer Wheatman, sit you still. Move but your hand and I spit you like a lark on a skewer. So, little man, so!"
The contempt in his words stirred the gall in my liver, but I neither spoke nor shifted, and he continued, addressing her, but with cold, amused eyes fixed on me, "You see, sweet Margaret, how yokel blood means yokel mood. Your turnip-knight freezes at the sight of steel."
In part at least he spoke truth. I had rarely seen a naked sword, other than our time-worn and useless relic of the doughty Smite-and-spare-not, and had never sat thus at the point of one drawn in earnest on myself. It is easy to blame me, and at the back of my own mind I was blaming and cursing myself, as I sat helpless there. I was keen as the blade he bore to help her, for here was her hour of uttermost need, but I did not see that I should be capable of much service with a hole in my heart, and he had me at his mercy beyond a doubt, so long as he had me in his eye. No, galling as it was, there was nothing to do but to wait the turn of events. Something might divert his attention. One second was all I wanted, and I sat there praying for it and ready for it. Meanwhile the scene, the talk, and she were full of interest.
Marry-me-quick's cottage was no hovel, either for size or appointments. Brocton was standing with his back to a dresser. On his left was the outer door, and on his right, between him and Mistress Waynflete, the door in the party wall leading to the back room where the rabbit-stew was now being dished up. Madam and I sat on opposite sides of the large hearth, a small round table, drawn close to the fire for comfort and covered with the supper things, occupied part of the space between us, but there was plenty of room for action. When Brocton had stretched out his rapier towards me in threat and command, the point was perhaps three feet from my breast, and he could master my slightest movement.
And Mistress Waynflete. At the bridge in the afternoon I had noticed that while danger for her father had stirred her heart to its dearest depth, danger for herself troubled her not one whit. When I looked at her now there was no fear in her face, which was calm as the face of a pictured saint, but I saw questionings there and knew they were of me. Plainly as if she spoke the words, her great blue eyes were saying, "Am I leaning on a broken reed?" As she caught my look she turned to Brocton, and I gritted my teeth and listened.
"So your lordship has found me!" She spoke easily and lightly. "How small the world must be since it cannot find room for me to avoid you!"
"Say rather, dear mistress, that my love draws me unerringly towards you."
"I thought I gathered that there was another motive for your coming here to-night."
"Margaret, believe me, I am distraught," he said, not wholly in mockery it seemed to me.
"So distraught, it seems, that you neglect your plainest duty as an officer in order to corrupt, if you can, a supposed country maiden, of whom you have heard by chance. His Grace of Cumberland will be glad to hear of such devotion."
"Won't you listen to me, Margaret? You know I love you."
"If you were offering me, my lord, the only kind of love which an honourable man can offer, I should still refuse it. Your reputation, character, and person are all equally disagreeable to me, and that you should imagine that there is even the smallest chance of your succeeding, is an insult for which, were I a man, you should pay dearly."
"On the contrary, dear Margaret," he replied, in his most silken tones, plainly shifting to more favourable ground, "I fancy that the chance is by no means small."
"Your fancy does not interest me," was the cold reply.
"Every woman has her price, if I may adapt a phrase of the late Sir Robert's, and I can pay yours. Excuse my frankness, Margaret. It would be unpardonable if we were not alone. Yon cattle-drover hardly counts as audience, I fancy, for he is already as good as strung up as a rebel."
After a long silence, so long that I tried to find an explanation of it, she said, "You refer to my father?" There was a quaver in her voice which all her bravery could not suppress.
"Exactly, Margaret, to your dear father."
"In times like this, no doubt, your conduct in arresting him will pass for legal, but fortunately some evidence will be required, and you have none. The fact is that in your loyal zeal you have acted too soon."
"I thought your daughterly instincts would be aroused," he answered, scoffing openly as he saw his advantage. "They have lain dormant longer than I expected. Believe me, Margaret, for my own purposes I have acted in the very nick of time, and you will do well to drop your unfounded hopes of the future. Your father's fate is certain if I act, for I can call a witness--you remember Major Tixall, a beery but insinuating person--whose evidence is enough to hang him fifty times over. Whether or not I produce it depends, as I say, on the depth of your affection for him."
"I shall know how to save my father, my lord, when the time comes. Now, perhaps, having played your last card, you will leave me."
"My dear Margaret," was the cool reply, "your innocence amazes me. My last card! Not at all, sweet queen. You are my last card."
"I? How so?"
"You, too, are a rebel, if I choose to say the word, and a dangerous one to boot. So here's your choice: come where love awaits you or go where the gallows awaits you."
"And if I could so far forget my nature as to come where love of your sort, the love of a mere brute beast, awaits me, you would forget everything?"
"Everything, Margaret."
"Your duty to your King included?"
"Certainly. There's nothing I will not do, or leave undone, at your behest for your fair sake."
"You flatter me, my lord, far above my poor deserts. And now, if your lordship will excuse me,"--she arose at the words, pale and determined as death,--"I will e'en go and give myself up to some responsible officer and acquaint him with your conduct."
"He would not believe you, my sweet Margaret."
"You forget I have a witness, my lord." For the first time during the conversation she looked across at me.
"He would not be there to witness, Margaret. Surely you suppose that I am wise enough to prevent that move. Keep on sitting still, Farmer Oliver. I'm glad, believe me, to see you so interested. A difficult piece of virtue she is, to be sure, and if you could only escape a hanging, which you will not, you might have learned to-night a useful lesson in the art of managing a woman. It's an art, sir, a great, a curious art, and I flatter myself I am somewhat of a master therein."
All this time he had kept me in his eye, and the point of his rapier was ready for my slightest move. It had grieved me to the heart to hear him shame this noble woman so, bargaining for her honour as lightly as a marketing housewife chaffers for a pullet. How she had felt it, I could judge in part by the deathly paleness of her face, and the tight hold she was keeping on herself. She dropped into her chair again and buried her face in her hands. He only smiled as one who presages a welcome triumph. I kept still and silent, never moving my eyes from his, praying and waiting for my second.
She raised her head and spoke again: "If I did not know you, my lord, I would plead with you. Two men's lives are in my hands, you say, and there is"--she paused--"but one way"--another terrible pause--"of saving them."
"You want me to throw in the cattle-drover?" he asked gaily.
"Yes," she replied, in a scarcely audible whisper.
"It's throwing in five hundred acres of land each of which my father values at a Jew's eye, let me tell you, but, egad, Margaret, you're not dear even at that. Run away home, Farmer Wheatman, and don't be fool enough to play the rebel again."
I sat still and silent. Speech was useless, and action not yet possible. That keen swordsman's eye must be diverted somehow. There was a God in heaven, and the rabbit-stew would be ready soon. It was useless to attempt to force matters. And as for his taunts, well, he was but feathering my arrows. So I sat on like a stone.
"Go, Master Wheatman," she urged faintly, but I did not even turn to look at her. My heart was thumping on my ribs, my nerves tingling, my muscles involuntarily tightening for a spring.
"These yokels are so dull and lifeless, Margaret. He cannot understand our impatience." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her crimson to the roots of her hair at this vicious insult. "Off, my man," he added to me, "or I'll prick your bull's hide." He thrust out his rapier to give point to the threat. Nothing moved me. My eyes were glued to his.
And now the door on his right hand opened, and little Mistress Marry-me-quick appeared with our supper. She saw the sword directed at the breast of the one man on earth she loved with all the fervour of her honest, womanly heart. The sight scattered her senses. With a nerve-racking shriek she flopped heavily to the floor, and the rabbit-stew flew from her hands and crashed loudly at his feet. It was too much for his wine-sodden nerves. His eyes turned, his body slackened, the point of his rapier flagged floorward. God had given me my second.
I bounded at him, not straight, but somewhat to his left. He recovered, but, anticipating a straight rush, thrust clean out on the expected line of my leap. His blade ran through between my coat and waistcoat, and the guard thumped sore on my ribs. Then he was mine.
I struck hard on heart and belt and knocked the wind out of his body. He sucked for breath like a drowning man. Now he could not call for help, and I finished him off, quickly, gladly, and smilingly. His twitching fingers fumbled at his belt as if seeking a pistol. Finding none, he made no further attempt to defend himself, and covered his face with his arms to keep off my blows, but I struck him with such fierce strength on his unprotected temples that he weakened and dropped them. His ghastly, bleeding face turned upwards, his dazed eyes pleading for the mercy he had denied her a moment ago. It was brute appealing to brute in vain, and with one last blow on the chin that drove his teeth together like the crack of a pistol and nearly tore his head off his shoulders, I knocked him senseless to the floor.
His rapier hung in the skirt of my coat, so close had I been to sure and sudden death. I drew it out and tossed it to the floor at his side. "I wish, madam," said I, reaching out for mother's domino, "that we could have saved the rabbit-stew."
"Is he dead?" she whispered, with white lips, coming forward and looking shudderingly down on him with troubled eyes.
"No such luck," said I. "He may be round in five minutes, but that's enough, though poor little Marry-me-quick will have to be left to fend for herself." I helped her into the domino, pulled the hood over the wonderful hair, and seized my own hat.
"Now, Mistress Waynflete," said I, "the northern halt of Staffordshire is before us, and the sooner some of it is behind us the better." With these words I led her to the door, which I closed carefully behind me, and into the street.
A little explanation will make our subsequent movements clearer. The eastern side of Stafford is roughly bow-shaped. The main street is the straight string and the wood is the curve of the wall, now mostly fallen down and in ruins, the line of which was followed by the street we were in, and only some fifty yards from the southern end of the string. The marksman's thumb represents the market square, and the arrow the line of the east gate street.
No cat in the town knew it better than I did, or could travel it better in the dark. Indeed, our only danger now came from the moon, but, fortunately, she had not yet climbed very high. Mistress Waynflete placed her arm in mine and we turned to the right, away from the still noisy and crowded main street. We passed an ale-house bursting with customers, the central figure among whom, plainly visible from the street, was Pippin Pat, an Irishman with so huge a head that he had become a celebrity under this name for miles around. He had made himself rolling drunk and, suitably to the occasion, had been made into a Highlander by the simple process of robbing him of his breeches and rubbing his head with ruddle. He was a sorry sight enough, but, the main thing, he had attracted an enormous company. I rejoiced to see him, for it meant that the wicket of his master's tanyard, half a stone's throw ahead, would be unbolted. This would save us a longish detour and lessen the danger of being observed.
Arrived at the tanyard gate, I tried the wicket. It was unbolted, as I had anticipated, and we were soon in the quiet and obscurity of the tanyard. The far side of the yard was separated by a low stone wall from the end of a blind alley leading into Eastgate Street. I guided my companion safely by the edges of the tan-pits, and on arriving at the wall, I made no apology but lifted her on to it. As she sat there a shaft of moonlight lit up her fine, brave face. I feasted my eyes upon it for a moment, and then made to leap over to assist her to the other side, but she stayed me with a hand on each shoulder.
"I will go no farther, Master Wheatman," she said in a low, troubled voice, "till you forgive me."
"Forgive you?" I cried, astounded. "Forgive you? What for?"
"For thinking meanly of you. I thought you were afraid of Brocton. Not until that lion leap of yours did I realize how cleverly and nobly you had sat there through his insults, foreseeing the exact moment when you could master him. My only explanation, I do not offer it as an excuse, is that the utter beast in Brocton makes it hard for me to think well of any man. Oh, believe me, I am ashamed, confounded, and miserable. Say you forgive me!"
"Madam," I said laughingly, "the next time I play the knight-errant, may God send me a less observant damsel. There's nothing to forgive. The plain truth is that I was frightened, a little bit. But I'm new to this sort of thing, and I hope to improve." Then, after a pause, I met her eyes full with mine and added, "As we go on."
"Frightened," she said scornfully, "you frightened, you who leaped unarmed on the best swordsman in London? No, don't mock me, Master Wheatman, forgive me."
"Of course I do, and thank you for your kind words. And we've both got some one to forgive."
She smiled radiantly--"Whom? And what for?"
I leaped over the wall, and put my arms around her to lift her down.
