A Gentleman Player Part 29

He led the way to her chamber. In the outer room, the wounded robber begged for the water that Marryott had promised. But Hal first pointed out to Kit the top of the ladder, and then proceeded with him to draw it up into the chamber. This was an act of some difficulty, by reason of the ladder's length and weight. When its top struck the roof of the apartment, it had to be turned to a horizontal position, and then moved diagonally across the floor, so that its foremost end should pa.s.s through the doorway to the outer room. While Hal guided this end, Bottle remained at the window, tugging at the ladder's rear.

It thus befell that Bottle alone was at the window when the pursuivant's troop--men far different in appearance and equipment from Rumney's band--rode into sight.

At one and the same instant, Bottle desisted from his exertions and stared down at the hors.e.m.e.n, and Roger Barnet halted his party with a curt gesture and gazed with hard coolness up at Kit.

"I see thou know'st me, Hodge," growled Bottle, at last. At this, Marryott stood still, far within the chamber, and listened for the answer.

It came, without emotion, in a voice that suggested iron, as some voices are said to suggest silver or gold.

"I thought 'twas you, the night Sir Valentine Fleetwood ran away," said Barnet. "And 'twas more certain, when louts by the way mentioned an ugly big rascal, red-faced of drink, and of never keeping fish-days."

"I trust I may still be eating meat on fish-days, when thou'rt eaten of worms!" replied Kit.

"Thou'lt fast a long fast, fish-days and other days, when I carry thee to London!" said Barnet. "Hudsdon, take ten men; place five behind this house, five north of it. Look you, Bottle, tell Sir Valentine Fleetwood I would speak with him in the queen's name."

"What if Sir Valentine Fleetwood be not here?"

"Thy presence tells me he is."

"And I also tell you that he is!" cried another voice, that of Mistress Hazlehurst, who had risen from her bed and rushed to the window. "He is here, Master Pursuivant! He is in this very room! He has made a prisoner of me!"

"'Tis well, mistress!" replied Barnet. "We'll soon make a prisoner of him."

With that, and after designating men to guard this side of the house, he rode with others toward the front, Hudsdon having already led away the ten to watch the rear and the further side.

Kit turned and looked at Marryott, but the latter had eyes for Mistress Hazlehurst only. The energy of her movement from the bed to the window, the vigor of her voice, gave the lie to her illness.

"'Twas well feigned!" said Hal, quietly, after regarding her for a short while in silence.

There was a little sorrow in his tone, but no reproach. His thought was the same as hers, which she uttered while squarely meeting his gaze.

"I had an enemy's right to use what means I could, having once declared myself, and the more so as I was your prisoner."

"'Tis most true," a.s.sented Hal. He would have much liked to explain that what saddened him was, not that she had counterfeited illness, but that she had counterfeited a willing response to his embraces. Why should she have thought it necessary to carry the pretence so far? A choked, blinded feeling came upon him. But he dared not succ.u.mb to it. Kit Bottle was looking on, awaiting orders, and the injured robber was crying for water. From the deceived, humiliated lover, Marryott became perforce the alert commander of besieged fugitives.

"This lady must be watched," he said to Kit. "Till I send Anthony to take your place see that she does not, by pa.s.sing them this ladder, or by hanging curtains or such stuff from the window, give Barnet's men the means of climbing into the house. Nay, mistress, our watchman will not disturb your privacy. From the outer room he can look through the door to your window. Seest thou, Kit?--the ladder lying flat through the doorway will forbid her closing the door. If there come sign of her at the window, or meddling with ladder or door, then thou must invade her chamber, and do as may seem best. You are warned, madam!"

With a courteous bow he left her. Bottle established himself outside her door, squatting upon the ladder, his eye following its side-pieces across her room to the window.

In the hall, Marryott found Anthony Underhill listening pa.s.sively to the door-knocks of Roger Barnet, which were accompanied by calls upon Sir Valentine Fleetwood to open in the queen's name. The Puritan a.s.sured Hal that the stable was now as strongly fortified as it had been ere his departure in quest of provisions. Marryott, thereupon, sent him to take Kit's place at Mistress Hazlehurst's door, and then despatched Oliver Bunch (who had with some surprise discovered himself to be still alive) with water for the wounded robber, and with instructions to care for the latter's injuries and for those of Tom and Francis.

Hal then made again the round of the house. Moreton, Hatch, and the least wounded of yesterday's deserters from Rumney, were at their original posts, to which Anthony had taken it on himself to order their return. Each man reported that his door had been tried from without, but that no violent attempt had been made to force entrance.

Coming back to the hall, Marryott saw Kit Bottle mounted on a trestle, and surveying the quadrangle through a clear place in a window.

"He has had his men dismount and the horses led away," said Kit, alluding, of course, to Roger Barnet. "He has set two guards, I think, at the front end of each wing, and two in the court. He is sitting on the edge of the fountain. He seems a little lame o' the leg."

"What think you is his intent?" asked Marryott, not risking to Barnet a possible glimpse of his face, for fear of an untimely undeceiving.

"'Tis for time to show. He will either attack or wait. But 'tis less like he will attack."

"Why?"

"Because he is a prudent dog and a patient. Those gaping bodies on the snow tell how Rumney's gang fared 'gainst men firing from inside these stout walls. Barnet thinks he has the hare mewed up, and 'tis as cheap to wait for't to venture out as 'tis to risk flesh and blood in trying to come at it. And, moreover, a fight might give the man he seeks a chance to die by sword or pistol, whereas 'tis a point of honor with Barnet to take his prisoner well and whole to London. He is a feeder of headsman's blocks and hangman's nooses! Ay, he has chosen to wait; 'tis certain now."

"How know'st thou?"

"He is filling his tobacco-pipe, and motioning one of his men for use of a slow-match. When Roger sits down to smoke, he hath made up his mind for a season of waiting. And there is no man can out-wait Roger Barnet when he is sucking his Nicotian. He is then truly patience on a monument, as Master Shakespeare's comedy says."

"If he wait till to-morrow night, my work for others will be done!

'Twill be six days since we left Welwyn, and 'twill take four and over, in this weather, for any man to ride back thither."

"And then 'tis a matter of our own necks, I ween! Let me tell thee this, lad: While Roger Barnet thinks the man he wants is in this house, he will wait to starve him out, though he wait till doomsday. And if he learns 'tis not his man that he hath been chasing, he will infer that the other man is by that time 'scaped, and he will wait still for the man that has tricked him. He will carry some victim back to London for this, be sure on't!"

Kit had come down from the trestle, and was standing with Hal at the fireplace.

"Well, after to-morrow," said Marryott, "we may use our wits, or our valor and skill, to break through the circle he has drawn around us."

"'Twill take sharp wits to slip through Roger Barnet's vigilance, now he has closed around us. As for valor and skill, what shall boot our small force 'gainst his, who are stout men all, well armed, and most of them clad above the waist in steel? Tut, lad, don't think old Kit is disturbed upon it! I'll die as well as another, and better than most! I tell thee these things merely in fireside talk, as I should speak of the weather."

"How if we shoot Barnet, from one of the windows?"

"Twould not help. Firstly, as the preacher at Paul's Cross says, we might miss him, or his cuira.s.s and morion might save him. He might take offence, and act as if we forced a fight upon his patience; might set fire to the timber part of this house and burn us out betimes. Secondly, if we killed Barnet, his man Hudsdon might do the burning. Hudsdon, look you, is, in his particular humor, a man of as good mettle as Barnet.

These be no Rumneys!"

"But if we so diminished Barnet's troop, by shooting them one by one from the windows, then we might sally forth, fire or no fire, with fair chance of cutting our way through."

"Ay, were it not that, for every man we slew, Barnet would send to Harmby or elsewhere for two men to fill the vacant post. As 'tis, the foul weather, and the pride of doing his own work unhelped, will stay him from demanding aid of the country; but an we force him to it, ere he give us the upper hand he will use to the full his power of pressing men, and requiring local officers, in the queen's name."

"Why, then, is there no course, no chance?"

"None but what time may bring, and time we shall gain by letting Roger wait. He will stay where he is, in hope of starvation driving out his man weak and easy to be taken, or of our knaves rebelling from hungry stomachs and delivering up their leader. But we'll see to it the men be staunch; and some time must pa.s.s before our bellies take to grinding one side 'gainst the other!"

"'Tis well Anthony brought--" began Marryott, but was interrupted by the entrance of Oliver Bunch at the top of the stairs.

"An't please your honor," said Oliver, "the lady desired I should ask when she might have breakfast, for that she is faint with hunger."

"Why, so am I; and the rest of us, I doubt not," said Marryott. "We shall eat forthwith. Where are the provisions Anthony brought, Kit?"

"I thought to have told you sooner," replied the captain, in a strangely resigned manner; "in the fray outside the stable door, Rumney's knaves got Anthony's bag of victuals from him, and when they ran off they forgot to leave it behind!"

There was a considerable silence, during which Kit Bottle looked darkly into the fire, and Marryott muttered several times under his breath, "A murrain on't!" Then, adopting the captain's mien of uncomplaint. Hal said to Oliver:

"Tell the lady we have no food and can get none. Later, I may contrive to obtain some for her, from the enemy that surrounds us."

"Why," said Kit Bottle, as Oliver disappeared, "an thou dost that, thou'lt betray our empty state to Roger Barnet."

"What matter?" said Hal. "We can hold out two days, that's certain. And after that,--Barnet will but know he need smoke the less tobacco till our starving out, that's all!"