The Lady of Loyalty House Part 20

"Some would have stuck such a hostage in a garret and done well enough."

Evander still kept his eyes fixed on the lady of the house and seemed to have no ears for the jeering Cavalier. With a lift of the hand that indicated and saluted the prospect, he said, smoothly, "You have a very gracious garden, lady."

Mirth shone discreetly in Brilliana's eyes as she gave the Puritan a bow for his praise. The Cavalier, a viola da gamba of anger, pegged his string of bl.u.s.ter tighter.

"Did not the fellow hear me?" he cried, and this time his noise won him a moment of attention. Evander gave him a glance, and then, returning to Brilliana, said, with a manner of amused contempt, "You have a very ungracious gardener."

Sir Blaise's pink face purpled; Sir Blaise's hand swung to the hilt of his sword. Evander seemed to have forgotten his existence and to await quietly any further favor of speech from Brilliana. My Lady Mischief, much diverted, judged it time to intervene.

"Lordamercy!" she cried, as she rose from her seat and moved a little way towards Sir Blaise. "Let me bring you acquainted."

The Cavalier caught her hand and stayed her before she could speak his name.

"Wait, wait," he whispered. "Watch me roast him."

He swung away from her and swaggered towards Evander. "Tell me, solemn sir," he questioned, "have you heard of one Sir Blaise Mickleton?"

"I have heard of him," Evander answered. His tranquil indifference to Sir Blaise's bearing, to Sir Blaise's splendor of apparel, p.r.i.c.ked the knight like a sting. He tried to change the sum of his irritation into the small money of wit.

"You have never heard that he snuffled through his nose, turned up his eyes, mewed psalms and canticles, and dubbed himself by some such name as Fight-the-Good-Fight-of-Faith, yea, verily?"

Sir Blaise talked with the drawling whine which he a.s.sumed to be the familiar intonation of all Puritan speech. Like many another humorless fellow, he prided himself upon a gift of mimicry signally denied to him. Even Brilliana's detestation of the Puritan party could not compel her to admire her neighbor's performance. Evander's face showed no sign of recognition of Sir Blaise's impertinence as he answered:

"No, truly, but I have heard some talk of a swaggering braggart, prodigal in valiant promise, but very huckster in a pitiful performance; in a word, a clown whose attempt to ape the courtier has never veiled the clod."

Brilliana found it hard to restrain her laughter as she watched the varying shades of fury float over Sir Blaise's broad face at each successive clause of Evander's disdainful indictment. Yet she was sadly vexed to think that her side commanded so poor a champion. Sir Blaise tried to speak, gasped out a furious "Sir!" then his pa.s.sion choked him, and he gobbled, inarticulate and grotesque. Evander went composedly on:

"He is rated a King's man, and would serve his master well if much tippling of healths and clearing of trenchers were yeoman service in a time of war. But his sword sleeps in its sheath."

"Now, by St. George--" Sir Blaise yelled, raising his clinched fists.

Brilliana feared at one moment that he would strike her prisoner in the face; feared in the next that he would fall at her feet dead of an apoplexy. She sailed between the antagonists and addressed Evander.

"Serious sir, will it dash you to learn that you are speaking to Sir Blaise Mickleton?"

Evander's countenance showed no sign either of surprise or of dismay.

Sir Blaise, still turkey-red, managed to gulp down his choler sufficiently to utter some syllables.

"I am that knight," he gasped; then, turning to Brilliana, he whispered behind his hand, "Mark now how this bear will climb down."

Brilliana, watching Evander, was not confident of apologies. Her prisoner made a slight inclination of the head towards Sir Blaise in acknowledgment of the fact of Brilliana's presentation, and said, very calmly:

"Why, then, sir, such a jury as your world has empanelled have misread you, for if they summed your flaws aptly in their report of you, they clapped this rider on their staggering verdict, that Sir Blaise Mickleton did, at his worst, do his best to play the gentleman."

Smiles of satisfaction rippled over Sir Blaise's face. He did not follow the drift of Evander's fluency but took it for compliment.

"Handsomely apologized, i' faith," he beamed to Brilliana. Brilliana laughed in his face.

"Why, poor man, he flouts you worse than ever," she whispered.

Sir Blaise knitted puzzled brows while Evander, having made the effective pause, continued, suavely:

"In the which judgment they erred, for he does not merit so creditable a praise. Sure they can never have seen him who couple in any way the name of Sir Blaise Mickleton with the t.i.tle of gentleman."

Even Sir Blaise's dulness could not misinterpret Evander's meaning, and rage resumed its sway.

"You crow! You kite!" he fumed. His wrath could find no more words, but he made a stride towards Evander, menacing. Brilliana stepped dexterously between the two. As she told Tiffany later, she felt as if she were gliding between fire and ice.

"One side of me was frozen, and the other done to a crisp." She lifted her hand commandingly.

"We will have no bickering here," she protested. Evander paid her a salutation, and, moving a little aside, resumed his book. He would not retire while Sir Blaise was in presence, but he guessed that the lady wished for speech with her friend. Sir Blaise did not find her words consolatory, though she affected consolation.

"The bear licks with a rough tongue," she whispered. Sir Blaise slapped his palms together.

"You shall see me ring him, you shall see me bait him, if you will but leave us."

"How shall I see if I leave?" Brilliana asked, provokingly. "But 'tis no matter."

As she spoke she thought of Halfman, and a merry scheme danced in her head.

"Gentles, I must leave you," she cried, with a pretty little reverence that included both men. Then in a moment she had slipped out of the pleasaunce and was running down the avenue. In the house she found Halfman. "Quick!" she cried, breathlessly. "Sir Blaise and Mr. Cloud are wrangling yonder like dogs over a bone."

"Do you wish me to keep the peace between them?" Halfman questioned.

Brilliana did not exactly know what she wished. She was fretted at the poor show a King's man had made before a Puritan; if Sir Blaise could do something to humble the Puritan it might not be wholly amiss. So much Halfman gathered from her jerky sc.r.a.ps of sentences; also, that on no account must the disputants be permitted to come to swords. Halfman nodded, caught up a staff, and ran full tilt to the pleasaunce. The moment his back was turned Brilliana, instead of remaining in the house, came out again, doubled on her course, and dodging among the hedges found herself peeping unseen upon the enclosure she had just quitted and the brawl at its height.

XX

SIR BLAISE PAYS HIS PENALTY

When Brilliana quitted them the two men had regarded each other steadily for a few seconds in silence. Then Sir Blaise spoke.

"You made merry with me just now in ease and safety, a lady being by."

Evander shrugged his shoulders.

"Had no lady been by I should have been more merry and less tender."

Sir Blaise scowled.

"I am ill to provoke, my master. Those quarrels end sadly that are quarrels picked with me."

Again Evander shrugged his shoulders.

"I pick no quarrel, sir. You asked me very straightly what I knew of Sir Blaise Mickleton, and very straightly I tended you my knowledge.

It is not my fault, but rather your misfortune, that you happen to be Sir Blaise Mickleton."