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A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth

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Title: A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth

Author: Robert Neilson Stephens


        
Release date: December 14, 2010 [eBook #34650]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GENTLEMAN PLAYER; HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH ***




Produced by David Edwards, Christian Boissonnas and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive)










A GENTLEMAN PLAYER




  Works of

  ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

  [Illustration]

  An Enemy to the King
  (Twentieth Thousand)

  The Continental Dragoon
  (Seventeenth Thousand)

  The Road to Paris
  (Sixteenth Thousand)

  A Gentleman Player
  (Sixth Thousand)

  [Illustration]

  L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY, Publishers
  (Incorporated)
  196 Summer St., Boston, Mass.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HARRY MARRYOTT.]
                                         (_See Page 87._)




  A
  GENTLEMAN PLAYER

  His Adventures on a Secret Mission for
  Queen Elizabeth

  BY

  ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

  AUTHOR OF
  "AN ENEMY TO THE KING," "THE
  CONTINENTAL DRAGOON," "THE
  ROAD TO PARIS," ETC.

  "And each man in his time plays many parts."
                                    --_As You Like It._

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) 1899




  _Copyright, 1899_
  BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
  (INCORPORATED)
  1899

  Colonial Press:
  Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
  Boston, Mass., U. S. A.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER                                                          PAGE

    I. THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF "HAMLET"                          11

    II. AT THE TAVERNS                                            36

   III. QUEEN AND WOMAN                                           69

    IV. THE UNEXPECTED                                            93

     V. THE PLAYER PROVES HIMSELF A GENTLEMAN                    104

    VI. AND THE GENTLEMAN PROVES HIMSELF A
            PLAYER                                               116

   VII. MISTRESS ANNE HAZLEHURST                                 129

  VIII. "A DEVIL OF A WOMAN"                                     137

    IX. THE FIRST DAY OF THE FLIGHT                              152

     X. THE LOCKED DOOR                                          174

    XI. WINE AND SONG                                            184

   XII. THE CONSTABLE OF CLOWN                                   199

  XIII. THE PRISONER IN THE COACH                                220

   XIV. HOW THE PAGE WALKED IN HIS SLEEP                         233

    XV. TREACHERY                                                251

   XVI. FOXBY HALL                                               276

  XVII. A WOMAN'S VICTORY                                        295

 XVIII. THE HORSEMEN ARRIVE                                      309

   XIX. THE HORSEMEN DEPART                                      320

    XX. ROGER BARNET SITS DOWN TO SMOKE SOME
              TOBACCO                                            332

   XXI. ROGER BARNET CONTINUES TO SMOKE TOBACCO                  342

  XXII. SPEECH WITHOUT WORDS                                     360

 XXIII. THE LONDON ROAD                                          368

  XXIV. HOW A NEW INCIDENT WAS ADDED TO AN
              OLD PLAY                                           375

   XXV. SIR HARRY AND LADY MARRYOTT                              398

        NOTES                                                    409




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                 PAGE

  QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HARRY MARRYOTT                    _Frontispiece_

  "SHE GAVE NO OUTWARD SIGN OF ANGER"                             190

  "THE BRAZEN NOTES CLOVE THE AIR"                                267

  "RUMNEY ... BACKED QUICKLY TO THE WINDOW,
      AND MOUNTED THE LEDGE"                                      327




A GENTLEMAN PLAYER.




CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF "HAMLET."


    "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"--_Quoted in "As You
    Like It," from Marlowe's "Hero and Leander."_


At three o'clock in the afternoon of the cold first Monday in March,
1601, a red flag rose, and a trumpet sounded thrice, from a little
gabled turret protruding up out of a large wooden building in a field in
that part of Southwark known as the Bankside and bordering on the Thames
west of London Bridge. This rude edifice, or enclosure, was round (not
like its successor, hexagonal) in shape; was in great part roofless; was
built on a brick and stone foundation, and was encircled by a ditch for
drainage. It was, in fact, the Globe Theatre; and the flag and trumpet
meant that the "Lord Chamberlain's servants" were about to begin their
performance, which, as the bill outside the door told in rough letters,
was to be that of a new "Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of
Denmark," written by William Shakespeare. London folk knew this Master
Shakespeare well as one of the aforesaid "servants," as the maker of
most of the plays enacted now by those servants, and, which was deemed
far more to his honor, as the poet of "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape
of Lucrece." Many who read the playbill guessed rightly that the new
"tragicall historie" was based in part upon another author's old play,
which they had seen performed many times in the past.[1]

The audience, in all colours and qualities of doublet and hose, ruff and
cloak, feathered hat and plain cap and scholar's coif, had awaited
noisily the parting of the worsted curtains of the stage projecting from
one side of the circular interior of the barnlike playhouse. Around the
other sides were wooden galleries, and under these was a raised platform
divided into boxes called "rooms," whose fronts were hung with painted
cloth. The stage and the actors' tiring-room behind it were under a roof
of thatch. The boxes had the galleries for cover. But the great central
O-shaped space, known as the "yard," where self-esteeming citizens, and
assertive scholars, and black-robed lawyers, and burly soldiers, and
people of countless occupations, and people of no occupation at all,
stood and crowded and surged and talked and chaffed, and bought fruit
and wine and beer from the clamorous venders, had no ceiling but the
sky. It had no floor but the bare ground, and no seats whatever.

The crowd in this so-called "yard" was expectant. The silk and velvet
gentry sitting in the boxes, some of whom smoked pipes and ogled the few
citizenesses in the better gallery, were for the most part prepared to
be, or to seem, bored. The solid citizens in gallery and yard were
manifestly there to get the worth of their eightpence or sixpence
apiece, in solid entertainment. The apple-chewing, nut-cracking,
fighting apprentices and riff-raff in the topmost gallery were
turbulently ready for fun and tumult, whether in the play or of their
own making. In the yard a few self-reliant women, not of the better
order, and some of them smoking like men, struggled to hold their own
amidst the hustling throng. Two or three ladies, disdaining custom and
opinion, or careless or ignorant thereof, were present, sitting in
boxes; but they wore masks.

Now and then, before the performance began, some young foppish nobleman,
scented, feathered, bejewelled, armed with gilt-hilted rapier in velvet
sheath, and sporting huge rosettes on his shoes, would haughtily, or
disdainfully, or flippantly, make his way to the lords' room, which was
the box immediately overlooking the stage; or would pass to a place on
the rush-covered stage itself, he or his page bearing thither a
three-legged stool, hired of a theatre boy for sixpence. There, on
similar stools at the sides of the stage, he would find others of his
kind, some idly chatting, some playing cards; and could hear, through
the rear curtains of arras screening the partition behind the stage, the
talk and movements of the players in their tiring-room, hurrying the
final preparations for the performance.

One of these gallants, having lighted his pipe, said, lispingly, to
another, and with a kind of snigger in the expression of his mouth:

"'Twill be a long time ere my lord of Southampton shall again sit here
seeing his friend Will's plays."

Southampton, indeed, was in the Tower for complicity in the insurrection
of his friend, the Earl of Essex, who had died on the block in February,
and whose lesser fellow conspirators were now having their trials.

"A long time ere any of us may see Will's plays here, after this week,"
answered the other lord, dropping the rush with which he had been
tickling a third lord's ear. "Don't you know, the chamberlain's actors
are ordered to travel, for having played 'Richard the Second' for the
Essex men when the conspiracy was hatching?"[2]

"Why, I've been buried in love,--a pox on the sweet passion!--dallying
at the feet of a gentlewoman in Blackfriars, the past month; and a
murrain take me if I know what's afoot of late!"

"What I've told you; and that is why we've had so many different plays
all in a fortnight, and two new ones of Will Shakespeare's. The players
must needs have new pieces ready for the country towns, especially for
the universities. These chamberlain's actors were parlously thick with
the Essex plotters; 'tis well they have friends at court, of other
leanings, like Wat Raleigh,--else they might find themselves ordered to
a tower instead of to a tour!"

Ignoring the pun, and glancing up at the black drapery with which the
stage was partly hung, the first exquisite remarked:

"Will Shakespeare must be in right mood for tragedy nowadays,--his
friend Southampton in prison, and Essex a head shorter, and himself
ordered to the country. Burn me if I know how a high-hearted knave like
Shakespeare, that gentlemen admit to their company, and that has had the
court talking of his poems, can endure to be a dog of an actor, and to
scribble plays for that stinking rabble out yonder to gape at!"

Whatever were Will Shakespeare's own views on that subject, he had at
that moment other matters in mind. In the bare tiring-room beyond the
curtained partition at the rear of the stage, he moved calmly about
among the actors, some of whom were not yet wholly dressed in the armor
or robes or other costume required, some of whom were already disguised
in false beard or hair, some already painted as to the face, some
walking to and fro, repeating their lines in undertones, with
preoccupied and anxious air; and so well did Master Shakespeare overcome
the agitations of an author who was to receive five pounds for his new
play, and of a stage-manager on whom its success largely depended, that
he seemed the least excited person in the room. He had put on the armor
for the part of the ghost, but his flowing hair--auburn, like his small
pointed beard--was not yet confined by the helmet he should soon don.
His soft light brown eyes moved in swift but careful survey of the whole
company; and then, seeing that the actors for the opening scene were
ready, and that the others were in sufficient preparation for their
proper entrances, he gave the signal for the flag and trumpet aloft.

At sight of the flag, late comers who had not yet reached the playhouse
mended their speed,--whether they were noblemen conveyed by boat from
the great riverside mansions of the Strand; gentlemen riding horseback,
or in coaches, or borne in wherries from city water-gates; or citizens,
law scholars, soldiers, sailors, rascals, and plain people, arriving by
ferry or afoot by London Bridge or from the immediate neighborhood. At
sound of the trumpet, the crowd in the theatre uttered the grateful
"Ah!" and other exclamations natural to the moment. From the tiring-room
the subordinate actor who played the first sentinel had already passed
to his post on the stage, by way of the door in the partition and of an
interstice in the rear curtains; other actors stood ready to follow
speedily; the front curtains were drawn apart, and the first performance
of Mr. William Shakespeare's earliest stage version of "Hamlet"--a
version something between the garbled form now seen in the "first
quarto" and the slightly altered form extant in the "second quarto"--was
begun.

In the tiring-room,--where the actors awaiting their entrance cues could
presently hear their fellows spouting on the stage without, and the
"groundlings" in the yard making loud comments or suggestions, and the
lords laughing lightly at their own affected chaff,--the pale yellow
light of the chill March afternoon fell from high-placed narrow windows.
It touched the face of one tall, slender young player, whose mustaches
required a close inspection to detect that they were false,--for at that
time, when the use of dye was general, it was common for natural beards
to look artificial. The hair of this youth's head also was brown, but it
was his own. His blue eyes and rather sharp features had a look half
conciliating, half defiant, and he was manifestly trying to conceal, by
standing perfectly still instead of fidgeting or pacing the floor, a
severe case of that perturbation which to this day afflicts the chief
persons concerned in a first performance of a play.

He was approached by a graceful young person in woman's clothes,--with
stomacher, puffed sleeves, farthingale, high-heeled shoes,--who had been
gliding about, now with every step and attitude of the gentle damsel he
seemed to be, now lapsing into the gait and manner of the pert boy he
was, and who said to the inwardly excited but motionless player:[3]

"Marry, Hal, take it not as 'twere thy funeral! Faith, thou'rt ten times
shakier o' the knees than Master Shakespeare himself, and he writ the
play. See how he claps his head-piece on, to go and play the ghost, as
if he were but putting on his hat to go to the tavern for a cup of
claret."

Hal looked as if he would deny the imputed shakiness; but seeing that
the clever boy "Ophelia" was not to be fooled, he gave a quick sigh, and
replied:

"'Tis my first time in so prominent a part. I feel as if I were the sign
in front of the theatre,--a fellow with the world on his back. May I be
racked if I don't half wish they'd given this 'Laertes' to Gil Crowe to
play, after all!"

"Tut, Master Marryott! An thou pluck'st up no more courage, thou shalt
ever be a mere journeyman. God knows thou art bold enough in a tavern or
a brawl! Look at Mr. Burbage,--he has forgot himself and us and all the
world, and thinks he is really Hamlet the Dane."

Hal Marryott, knowing already what he should see, glanced at Burbage,
who paced, not excitedly but as in deep meditation, near the entrance to
the stage. A short, stout, handsome man, with a thoughtful face, a fine
brow, a princely port; like Shakespeare, he was calm, but while
Shakespeare had an eye for everything but apparently the part himself
was to play, Burbage was absorbed entirely in his own part and
unconscious of all else, as if in the tiring-room he was already Hamlet
from the moment of putting on that prince's clothes.[4]

"What a plague are you looking at, Gil Crowe?" suddenly demanded Hal
Marryott of another actor, who was gazing at him with a malicious smile
evidently caused by Hal's ill-concealed disquietude. "An it be my shoes,
I'll own you could have made as good if you'd stuck to your proper
trade!"

"Certes," replied Crowe, who wore the dress of Rosencrantz, and whose
coarse face bore marks of dissipation, "I'm less like to deny having
been a shoemaker, which is true, than some are to boast of having been
gentlemen, which may be doubtful."

Young Marryott's eyes flashed hot indignation. Before he could control
himself to retort, an actor in a rich robe and a false white beard,[5]
who had overheard Master Crowe's innuendo, strode up and said:

"Faith, Crowe, you wrong the lad there. Who hath ever heard him flaunt
his birth before us? Well you know it, if he doth at times assert his
gentle blood, 'tis when forced to it; and then 'tis by act and manner,
not by speech. Go your ways, Crowe; thou'st been overfree with the
pottle-pot again, I'm afeard!"

"Nay," put in the impudent Ophelia, his elbows thrust out, his hands
upon his hips, "Master Crowe had picked out the part of Laertes for
himself; and because Master Shakespeare chose Hal to play it. Hal is a
boaster and not truly gentle born."

"You squeaking brat," said Crowe, "but for spoiling thy face for the
play, I'd put thee in thy place. I might have played Laertes, but
that--"

Here he paused, whereupon the white-bearded Corambis (such was the name
of Polonius in the first version) finished for him:

"But that y'are not to be trusted with important parts, lest the play be
essentially spoiled an you be too drunk to act."

"Why, as for that," replied Crowe, "beshrew me but our gentleman here
will stay as late at the tavern, and be roaring as loud for more sack
when daylight comes, as any one."

For this home thrust Marryott had no reply. Crowe thereupon walked away,
the Corambis joined another group, and the Ophelia sauntered across the
room to view the costly raiment that a tiring man was helping Mr.
William Sly to put on for the part of the foppish courtier, later
christened Osric. Left to his thoughts, the Laertes, nervously twirling
his false mustaches, followed the ex-shoemaker with his eyes, and
meditated on the latter's insolence. The more he reviewed it, and his
own failure to rebuke it properly, the more wrathful he inwardly became.
His anger served as a relief from the agitation he had formerly
undergone. So deeply buried was he in his new feelings, that he heeded
not the progress of affairs on the stage; and thus he was startled when
he felt his arm caught by Shakespeare, who was pointing to the entrance,
and saying:

"What ails thee, Harry? They wait for thee on the stage."

Roused as from sleep, and seeing that Burbage and the others had indeed
gone forth from the tiring-room, Hal ran to the entrance and out upon
the stage, his mind in a whirl, taking his place before King Claudius
with such abruptness that Burbage, surprised from his mood of melancholy
self-absorption, sent him a sharp glance of reproof. This but increased
his abashment, and he stared up at the placard that proclaimed the stage
to be a room in the palace at Elsinore, in a kind of panic. The
audience moved and murmured, restlessly, during the king's long speech,
and Hal, imagining that his own embarrassment was perceptible to all,
made an involuntary step backward toward the side of the stage. He thus
trod on the toe of one of the noble spectators, who was making a note in
his tables, and who retaliated with an ejaculation and a kick. Feeling
that some means must be taken to attain composure, the more as his heart
seemed to beat faster and his stomach to grow weaker, Hal remembered
that he had previously found distraction in his wrath toward Gilbert
Crowe. He therefore brought back to mind the brief passage in the
tiring-room. So deeply did he lose himself in this recollection, gazing
the while at the juniper burning on the stage to sweeten the air, that
it was like a blow in the face when he suddenly became aware of a
prolonged silence, and of the united gaze of all the actors upon
himself.

"What wouldst thou have, Laertes?" the king was repeating for the third
time.

Hal, aware now that his cue had been given more than once, opened his
lips to reply, but his first line had fled completely from his mind. In
his blank confusion he flashed a look of dismay toward the entrance. His
eyes caught those of Shakespeare, who had parted the arras curtains
sufficiently to be visible to the players. Rather in astonishment than
in reproach, the poet, serving on occasion as prompter, uttered half
audibly the forgotten words, and Hal, caught back as from the brink of a
bottomless pit, spoke out with new-found vigor:

                  "Dread my lord.
        Your leave and favor to return to France,"

and the ensuing lines. But his delivery did not quiet down the
audience,--which, indeed, though it had hushed for a moment at the
play's opening, and again at the appearance of the ghost, was not
completely stilled, until at last, upon the king's turning to Hamlet,
the "wondrous tongue" of Burbage spoke.

When Hal presently made exit to the tiring-room, after the king and
courtiers, he craved the pardon of Master Shakespeare, but the latter
merely said:

"Tut, Hal, it hath happened to all of us in our time."

The derisive smile of Crowe did not sweeten Harry's musings while he
waited for his next going on. Indeed, he continued to brood bitterly on
the exhibition he had made of himself, and the stay he had caused in the
play. His chagrin was none the less for that it was his friend and
benefactor Shakespeare that had nominated him for the part of Laertes,
and whose play he had brought to a momentary halt. In deep dejection,
when the time came, he returned to the stage with the boy-Ophelia for
his scene with her and Corambis.

This passed so smoothly as to give Hal new heart, until it was near its
very end; and then, having replied to Corambis's excellent advice with
the words. "Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord," Hal happened to
let his glance wander past the old man, and across a surging mass of
heads in a part of the yard, to a certain face in one of the boxes; and
that face had in it something to make his gaze remain delightedly upon
it and his lips part in admiration.

Yes, the face was a lady's. Hal had never seen it before; of that he was
instantly sure, for had he seen it he could not have forgotten it. He
would not have seen it now but that its youthful possessor had removed
her mask, which had become irksome to her skin. She seemed above all
concern as to what might be thought of her for showing her face in a
Bankside theatre. A proud and wilful face was hers, as if with the
finest feminine beauty she had something of the uncurbed spirit and
rashness of a fiery young gentleman. Her hair and eyes were dark, her
skin fair and clear and smooth, her forehead not too high, her chin
masterful but most exquisitely shaped, her cheeks rich with natural
color. In fine, she was of pronounced beauty, else Master Marryott had
not forgot himself to look at her. Upon her head was a small gray velvet
hat, peaked, but not very high, and with narrow brim turned up at the
sides. Her chin was elevated a little from contact with a white cambric
ruff. Her gown was of murrey cloth with velvet stripes, and it tightly
encased her figure, which was of a well-made and graceful litheness. The
slashed sleeves, although puffed out, did not make too deep a secret of
her shapely, muscular arms. She might have been in her twenty-second
year.

With this fine young creature, and farther back in the box, sat a richly
dressed old gentleman, comfortably asleep, and a masked lady, who shrank
as far as possible into the shadow of the box corner. Standing in the
yard, but close to the front of the box, was a slim, dark-faced youth in
the green attire then worn by the menservants of ladies.

Not all these details, but only the lady, held the ravished Laertes's
attention while he recited:

            "Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
            What I have said to you."

So heedless and mechanical was his utterance of these lines, in contrast
with his previous lifelike manner, that the nearest auditors laughed.
The Corambis and Ophelia, seeking the cause of his sudden lapse,
followed his gaze with wondering side-glances, while Ophelia replied,
in the boy's musical soprano:

                      "'Tis in my memory lock'd
        And you yourself shall keep the key of it."

"Farewell," said Laertes, this time with due expression, but rather to
the lady in the distant box than to Ophelia and Corambis. Reluctantly he
backed toward the rear curtains, and was so slow in making his exit,
that Corambis, whose next line required to be spoken in Laertes's
absence, gave him a look of ireful impatience and a muttered "Shog, for
God's sake," which set the young lords at the stage-side tittering.

At sight of Shakespeare, who was whispering to the Horatio and the
Marcellus, near the entrance. Master Marryott had another twinge of
self-reproach, but this swiftly yielded to visions of the charming face.
These drove away also all heed of the presence of Crowe. Hal would have
liked to mount the steps to the balcony at the rear of the stage, in
which the unemployed actors might sit when it was not in other use, and
whence he might view the lady at leisure; but the balcony was soon to be
in service as a platform of the castle, in the scene between Hamlet and
the ghost.

His imagination crossing all barriers, and making him already the
accepted wooer of the new beauty. Hal noted not how the play went on
without, even when a breathless hush presently told of some unusual
interest on the part of the audience; and he was then but distantly
sensible of Shakespeare's grave, musical voice in the ghost's long
recitals, and of the awestricken, though barely whispered, exclamations
of Burbage.

In the second act Hal had to remove his mustaches, change his cloak, and
go on as an attendant in the presence-chamber scene. His first glance
was for the lady. Alas, the face was in eclipse, the black velvet mask
had been replaced!

Returning to the tiring-room, he had now to don the beard of an elderly
lord, in which part he was to help fill the stage in the play scene. As
he marched on in the king's train, for this scene, to the blare of
trumpet and the music of instruments in a box aloft,--violins, shawms,
sackbuts, and dulcimers,--he saw that the lady was still masked. His
presence on the stage this time gave him no opportunity to watch her; he
had to direct his eyes, now at the king and queen on their chairs at one
side of the stage, and now at the platform of the mimic players.

When he made his exit with the royal party, he saw on every face a kind
of elation. "They are hit, and no question," said Master Taylor. "Ay,"
quoth Master Condell, "that shout of the groundlings, when the king
fled, could have been heard as far as the bear-garden." "But the
stillness of both lords and groundlings before that," said Master
Heminge,--"never was such stillness when Tom Kyd's Hamlet was played."
"We shall see how they take the rest of it," said Shakespeare,
softly,--though he could not quite conceal a kind of serene satisfaction
that had stolen upon his face.

Hal Marryott doffed his beard, and resumed his Laertes cloak, resolved
to have some part in the general success. His next scene, that in which
Laertes calls the king to account for his father's death, and beholds
his sister's madness, held the opportunity of doing so,--of justifying
Shakespeare's selection for the part, of winning the young lady's
applause, of hastening his own advancement to that fortune which would
put him in proper state to approach a wealthy gentlewoman. Perhaps she
was one of those who were privileged to attend the Christmas court
performances. Could he first win her admiration in some fine part at
Whitehall, the next time the chamberlain's men should play there;
then--by getting as much wealth as Mr. Alleyn and other players had
acquired--leave the stage, and strut in the jewels and velvet suitable
to his birth, to what woman might he not aspire? He had all planned in a
minute, with the happy facility of youth in such matters.

So he stood in a remote corner of the tiring-room, getting into the
feeling of his next scene, repeating the lines to himself, assuming a
Burbage-like self-absorption to repel those of his fellow players who,
otherwise, would now and then have engaged him in talk. Much
conversation was going on in undertone among the groups standing about,
or sitting on the tables, chairs, stools, and chests that awaited their
time of service on the stage,--for, although scenery was merely
suggested by word or symbol, furniture and properties, like costume and
makeup, were then used in the theatres. In due time, Hal placed himself
at the entrance, working up his mood to a fine heat for the occasion;
heard the cue, "The doors are broke;" and rushed on, crying "Where is
this king?" with a fury that made the groundlings gape, and even
startled the lolling lords into attention.

Having ordered back his Danes, and turned again to the king, he cast one
swift glance toward the lady's box, to see how she had taken his fiery
entrance; and perceived--no one. The box was empty.

He felt as if something had given way beneath him. In a twinkling his
manner toward the king fell into the most perfunctory monotone. So he
played the scene out, looking again and again to ascertain if his eyes
had not deceived him; but neither was she there, nor the other lady, nor
the gentleman, nor the page in green who had stood before the box. The
theatre was dark and dull without her; though as much light came in as
ever, through the gallery windows and the open top of the playhouse.

With a most blank and insipid feeling did Hal finish this scene, and the
longer and less interesting one that came almost immediately after. He
carried this feeling back to the dressing-room, and dropped upon a stool
in utter listlessness.

"Hath life then lost all taste and motive?" It was the voice of
Shakespeare, who had read Hal's mood. The question came with an
expression half amused, half sympathetic. At this, in place of which he
had deserved a chiding, Hal was freshly stricken, and more deeply than
before, with a sense of the injury he did his benefactor by his lifeless
acting. So his answer was strangely wide from the question.

"Forgive me," he said. "I swear I'll make amends in the rest of the
play."

And he rose, resolved to do so. Perhaps, after all, the lady and her
companions had but gone to another box, or would return to the theatre
before the play was over. And, moreover, what a fool should he be, to
throw away this chance of advancement that might equip him for some
possible future meeting with her! And what malicious triumph was glowing
darkly on the countenance of Gilbert Crowe! There remained to Hal two
opportunities to retrieve himself.

The first was the encounter with Hamlet in the graveyard. Choosing to
believe that his enchantress was indeed looking on from some
to-him-unknown part of the house, he put into this short scene so
excellent a frenzy that, on coming off the stage, he was greeted with a
quiet "Sir, that was well played," from Burbage himself, who had made
exit a moment earlier. "Bravely ranted," said the Corambis; and the
Ophelia, now out of his woman's clothes and half into a plain doublet,
observed, with a jerk of his head toward Master Crowe:

"Thou'st turned Gil's face sour of a sudden."

But Master Marryott, disdaining to take gratification in Gil's
discomfiture, found it instead in a single approbative look from
Shakespeare; and then, choosing his foil, began making passes at the
empty air, in practice for the fencing match.

It was partly for his skill with the foils that Hal had got
Shakespeare's vote for the character of Laertes. Being a gentleman by
birth, though now alone in the world and of fallen fortunes, he had
early taken kindly to that gentleman among weapons, the rapier, that had
come to drive those common swaggerers, the sword and buckler, out of
general service. At home in Oxfordshire, in the lifetime of his parents,
and before the memorable lawsuit with the Berkshire branch of the family
had taken the ancestral roof from over his head, and driven him to
London to seek what he might find, he had practised daily with the
blade, under whatever tuition came his way. In London he had picked up
what was to be learned from exiled Frenchmen, soldiers who had fought in
Flanders and Spain, and other students of the steel, who abounded in the
taverns. With his favorite weapon he was as skilful as if he had taken
at least a provost's degree in the art of fence. The bout in "Hamlet"
was, of course, prearranged in every thrust and parry, but, even so,
there was need of a trained fencer's grace and precision in it. Good
fencing was in itself a show worth seeing, in a time when every man knew
how to wield one weapon or another.[6]

The audience was wrought up to that pitch of interest which every fifth
act ought to witness, when the final scene came on. Each man--especially
among the apprentices, the soldiers, and the lords--constituted himself
an umpire of the contest, and favored the fighters with comments and
suggestions. The sympathy, of course, was with Hamlet, but no one could
be blind to the facile play of the Laertes, who indeed had the skill to
cover up his antagonist's deficiency with the weapon, and to make him
appear really the victor. The courteous manner in which Hal confessed
himself hit put the spectators into suitable mind for the better
perceiving of his merit. There could be little doubt as to the outcome,
had the fight been real, for Burbage was puffing in a way that made the
queen's observation, "He's fat and scant of breath," most apt. During
the sword-work, the lords and soldiers aired Italian fencing terms then
current, in praising the good defence that "the mad girl's brother"
made; and when he seemed to wound Hamlet, there burst out a burly voice
from the midst of the yard, with:

"I knew that thrust was coming, Master Marryott! Tis I--Kit Bottle!"

When Laertes confessed his treachery and begged Hamlet's forgiveness, so
well had Hal fenced and so well acted, he won such esteem of the
audience as to die in the best odor. And when, at last, the rushes
covering the stage boards were in turn covered with dead bodies, when
the curtains closed, and the audience could be heard bustling noisily
out of the theatre, Hal partook of the general jubilant relief, and
hoped the beautiful young lady had indeed seen the last act from
somewhere in the house. The actors arose from the dead, looked as if
they had jointly and severally thrown off a great burden, and hastened
to substitute their plainer clothes for their rich costumes.

"Come with us to the Falcon for a cup or two, and then to the Mermaid to
supper," said Shakespeare to Hal, as the latter was emerging from the
theatre a few minutes later, dressed now in somewhat worn brown silk
and velvet. With the poet were Masters Heminge, Sly, Condell, and
Laurence Fletcher, manager for the company of players. The six walked
off together, across the trodden field and along the street or roadway,
drawing their short cloaks tight around them for the wind. The Falcon
tavern was at the western end of the Bankside, separated from the river
by a little garden with an arbor of vines. As the players were about to
enter, the door opened, and a group of gentlemen could be seen coming
from within, to take boat for the city or Westminster.

"Stand close," said Fletcher, quickly, to the actors. "We may hear an
opinion of the play. My lord Edgebury is the best judge of these matters
in England."

The players moved aside, and pretended to be reading one of their own
bills, as the nobles passed.

"It holdeth attention," my lord was saying to his companions,
"but--fustian, fustian! Noise for the rabble in the yard. 'Twill last a
week, perchance, for its allegory upon timely matters. But I give it no
longer. 'Twill not live."

"Gramercy!" quoth Sly to the players, with a comical smile. "He is more
liberal than Gil Crowe, who gives it but three afternoons. Come into the
tavern, lads, and a plague on all such prophets!"

My lord Edgebury and Gil Crowe, ye are not dead yet. At all first
nights do ye abound; in many leather-covered study-chairs do ye sit,
busy with wet blankets and cold water. On this occasion, though no one
knew it at the time, you were a trifle out of your reckoning,--three
hundred years, at least, as far as we may be sure now; not much, as
planets and historians count, but quite a while as time goes with
children.




CHAPTER II.

AT THE TAVERNS.


    "We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow."--_Henry
    IV., Part II._


That this narrative--which is to be an account of things done, not an
antiquarian "picture" of a past age--need not at every step be learnedly
arrested by some description of a costume, street, house, aspect of
society, feature of the time, or other such matter, let the reader be
reminded at the outset that the year 1601 was of Elizabeth's reign the
forty-second; that England was still in the first thrill of the greatest
rejuvenescence the world ever knew; that new comforts, and new luxuries,
and new thoughts, and new possibilities, and new means of pleasure, had
given Englishmen a mad and boisterous zest for life; that gentlemen
strutted in curiously shaped beards, and brilliant doublets, and silken
trunk-hose, and ruffs, and laced velvet cloaks, and feathered hats; that
ladies wore stiff bodices and vast sleeves, and robes open in front to
show their petticoats, and farthingales to make those petticoats stand
out; that many of these ladies painted their faces and used false hair;
that the attire of both sexes shone with jewels and gold and silver;
that London folk were, in brief, the most richly dressed in the world;
that most ordinary London houses were of wood and plaster, and gabled,
and built so that the projecting upper stories darkened the narrow
streets below; that the many-colored moving spectacle in those streets
was diversified by curious and admiring foreigners from everywhere; that
although coaches were yet of recent introduction, the stone paving
sounded with them as well as with the carts and drays of traffic; that
gray churches, and desolated convents, and episcopal palaces, and
gentlemen's inns, and turreted mansions of nobility, abounded in city
and suburbs; that the Catholics were still occasional sufferers from
such persecution as they in their time had dealt to the Protestants;
that there were still some very proud and masterful great lords,
although they now came to court, and had fine mansions in the Strand or
other suburbs, and no longer fostered civil or private war in their
great stone castles in the country; that bully 'prentices, in woollen
caps and leather or canvas doublets, were as quick to resent real or
fancied offence, with their knives, as gentlemen were with
silver-gilt-hilted rapiers; that the taverns resounded with the fanciful
oaths of heavily bearded soldiers who had fought in Flanders and Spain;
that there were eager ears for every amazing lie of seafaring
adventurers who had served under Drake or Raleigh against the Spanish;
that tobacco was still a novelty, much relished and much affected; that
ghosts and witches were believed in by all classes but perhaps a few
"atheists" like Kit Marlowe and Sir Walter Raleigh; that untamed England
was still "merry" with its jousts, its public spectacles, its rustic
festivals, its holiday feasts, and its brawls, although Puritanism had
already begun to show its spoil-sport face; and, to come to this
particular first Monday in March, that the common London talk, when it
was not of the private affairs of the talkers, had gone, for its theme,
from the recent trial and death of the brave but restless Earl of Essex,
to the proceedings now pending against certain of his lesser satellites
in the Drury House conspiracy.

Before entering the Falcon, Hal Marryott sent a last sweeping look in
all directions, half daring to hope that the lady in gray and murrey had
not yet left the vicinity of the theatre. But the audience had gone its
countless ways; at the Falcon river-stairs the watermen's cries and the
noise of much embarking had subsided; and the only women in sight were
of the Bankside itself, and of a far different class from that of her
whom he sought. He sighed and followed his companions into the tavern.

They were passing through the common hall, on their way to a room where
they could be served privately, when they were greeted by a tall, burly,
black-bearded, bold-featured, weather-browned, middle-aged fellow in a
greasy leather jerkin, an old worn-out red velvet doublet, and patched
brown silk trunk-hose, and with a sorry-feathered remnant of a
big-brimmed felt hat, a long sword and a dagger, these weapons hanging
at his girdle. His shoes barely deserved the name, and his brown cloth
cloak was a rag. His face had been glum and uneasy, but at sight of the
players he instantly threw on the air of a dashing, bold rascal with
whom all went merrily.

"'The actors are come hither, my lord,'" he cried, with a flourish,
quoting from the play of the afternoon. "A good piece of work, Master
Shakespeare. Excellent! More than excellent!"

"Despite thyself, for doing thy best to spoil it,--bawling out in the
fencing match, Kit Bottle," put in Will Sly.

"Captain Bottle, an it please you, Master Sly," said the other,
instantly taking on dignity; "at least when I carried Sir Philip Sidney
off the field at Zutphen, and led my company after my lord Essex into
Cadiz."

"And how goes the world with thee, Captain Kit?" inquired Mr.
Shakespeare, with something of a kindly sadness in his tone.

"Bravely, bravely as ever, Master Will," replied Kit. "Still marching to
this music!" And he shook a pouch at his belt, causing a clinking sound
to come forth.

As the players passed on to their room, Kit plucked the sleeve of Hal
Marryott, who was the last. When the two were alone in a corner, the
soldier, having dropped his buoyant manner, whispered:

"Hast a loose shilling or two about thy clothes, lad? Just till
to-morrow, I swear on the cross of my sword. I have moneys coming; that
is, with a few testers to start dicing withal, I shall have the coin
flowing me-ward. Tut, boy, I can't lie to thee; I haven't tasted meat or
malt since yesterday."

"But what a devil--why, the pieces thou wert jingling?" said Hal,
astonished.

"Pox, Hal, think'st thou I would bare my poverty to a gang of
players--nay, no offence to thee, lad!" The soldier took from the pouch
two or three links of a worthless iron chain. "When thou hast no coin,
lad, let thy purse jingle loudest. 'Twill serve many a purpose."

"But if you could not buy a dinner," said Hal, smiling, "how did you buy
your way into the playhouse?"

"Why, body of me," replied Bottle, struggling for a moment with a slight
embarrassment, "the mind, look you, the mind calls for food, no less
than the belly. Could I satisfy both with a sixpence? No. What should
it be, then? Beef and beer for the belly? Or a sight of the new play, to
feed the mind withal? Thou know'st Kit Bottle, lad. Though he hath
followed the wars, and cut his scores of Spanish throats, and hath no
disdain of beef and beer, neither, yet as the mind is the better part--"

Moved at thought of the hungry old soldier's last sixpence having gone
for the play, to the slighting of his stomach, Hal instantly pulled out
what remained of his salary for the previous week, about five shillings
in amount, and handed over two shillings sixpence, saying:

"I can but halve with thee, Kit. The other half is owed."

"Nay, lad," said Kit, after a swift glance around to see if the
transaction was observed by the host or the drawers, "I'll never rob
thee, persuade me as thou wilt. Two shillings I'll take, not a farthing
more. Thou'rt a heart of gold, lad. To-morrow I'll pay thee, an I have
to pawn my sword! To-morrow, as I'm a soldier! Trust old Kit!"

And the captain, self-styled, in great haste now that he had got the
coin, strode rapidly from the place. Hal Marryott proceeded to the room
where his fellow actors were. His cup of canary was already waiting for
him on the table around which the players sat.

"What, Hal," cried Sly, "is it some state affair that Bottle hath let
thee into?"

"I like the old swaggerer," said Hal, evading the question. "He hath
taught me the best of what swordsmanship I know. He is no counterfeit
soldier, 'tis certain; and he hath a pride not found in common rogues."

"I think he is in hard ways," put in Laurence Fletcher, the manager,
"for all his jingle of coin. I saw him to-day lurking about the door of
the theatre, now and again casting a wishful glance within, and then
scanning the people as they came up, as if to find some friend who would
pay for him. So at last I bade him come in free for the nonce. You
should have seen how he took it."

"I warrant his face turned from winter to summer, in a breath," said Mr.
Shakespeare. "Would the transformation were as easily wrought in any
man!"

A winter indeed seemed to have settled upon his own heart, for this was
the time, not only when his friends of the Essex faction were suffering,
but also when the affair of the "dark lady," in which both Southampton
and the Earl of Pembroke were involved with himself, had reached its
crisis.

Hal smiled inwardly to think how Bottle had seized the occasion to touch
a player's feelings by appearing to have spent his last sixpence for
the play; and forgave the lie, in admiration of the pride with which
the ragged warrior had concealed his poverty from the others.

As Hal replaced his remaining three shillings in his pocket, his fingers
met something hairy therein, which he had felt also in taking the coin
out. He drew it forth to see what it was, and recognized the beard he
had worn as the elderly lord. He then remembered to have picked it up
from the stage, where it had accidentally fallen, and to have thrust it
into his pocket in his haste to leave the theatre and see if the girl in
murrey was still about. He now put it back into his pocket. After the
wine had gone round three times, the players left the Falcon, to walk
from the region of playhouses and bear-gardens to the city, preferring
to use their legs rather than go by water from the Falcon stairs.

They went eastward past taverns, dwelling-houses, the town palace of the
Bishop of Winchester, and the fine Church of St. Mary Overie, to the
street then called Long Southwark; turned leftward to London Bridge, and
crossed between the tall houses of rich merchants, mercers, and
haberdashers, that of old were built thereon. The river's roar, through
the arches beneath, required the players to shout when they talked, in
crossing. Continuing northward and up-hill, past the taverns and
fish-market of New Fish Street, their intention being to go at once to
the Mermaid, they heeded Master Condell's suggestion that they tarry on
the way for another drink or two; and so turned into Eastcheap, the
street of butchers' shops, and thence into the Boar's Head Tavern, on
the south side of the way.

On entering a public parlor, the first person they saw was Captain
Bottle, sitting at a table. On the stool opposite him was a young man in
a gay satin doublet and red velvet cloak, and with an affected air of
self-importance and worldly experience. This person and the captain were
engaged in throwing dice, in the intervals of eating.

"What, old rook--captain, I mean," called out Mr. Sly; "must ever be
shaking thine elbow, e'en 'twixt the dishes at thy supper?"

"An innocent game, sir," said Kit, promptly, concealing his annoyance
from his companion. "No money risked, worth speaking of. God's body,
doth a sixpence or two signify?" And he continued throwing the dice,
manifestly wishing the actors would go about their business.

"'Tis true, when Captain Bottle plays, it cannot be called gaming," said
Master Condell.

"He means," explained Bottle to his companion, in a confidential tone,
"that I am clumsy with the dice. A mere child, beshrew me else! A babe
in swaddling clothes! 'Tis by the most marvellous chance I've been
winning from you, these few minutes. 'Twill come your way soon, and
you'll turn my pockets inside out. Pray wait for me a moment, while I
speak to these gentlemen. We have business afoot together."

Kit thereupon rose, strode over to the players, drew them around him,
and said, in a low tone:

"What, boys, will ye spoil old Kit's labor? Will ye scare that birdling
away? Will ye keep money from the needy? This gull is clad in coin, he
is lined with it, he spits it, he sweats it! He is some country beau,
the dandy of some market town, the son of some rustical justice, the
cock of some village. He comes up to London once a year, sees a little
of the outside of our life here, thinks he plays the mad rascal in a
tavern or two, and goes home to swagger it more than ever in his
village, with stories of the wickedness he hath done in London. An I get
not his money, others will, and worse men,--and, perchance, leave him in
a worse condition."

"We shall leave him to thy mercy, and welcome. Kit," said Mr.
Shakespeare. "He shall never know thy tricks from us. Come our ways,
lads. These village coxcombs ought to pay something for their egregious
vanity and ignorance. This fellow will have the less means of strutting
it in the eyes of the louts, when Kit hath had his way." The poet was
doubtless thinking of the original of his Justice Shallow.[7]

So the players went on to another room, Hal remaining to say in Kit's
ear:

"I knew fellows like this ere I came from the country, and how they
prated of London, and of their wildness here. Gull such, if thou must be
a cheater."

"Cheater," echoed Kit. "Nay, speak not the word as if it smelt so bad.
Should a man resign his faculties and fall back on chance? Do we leave
things to chance in war? Do we not use our skill there, and every
advantage God hath given us? Is not a game a kind of mimic war, and
shall not a man use skill and stratagem in games? Go to, lad. Am I a
common coney-catcher? Do I cheat with a gang? Do I consort with
gull-gropers? An this rustic hath any trick worth two of mine, is he not
welcome to play it?"[8]

Whereupon Kit, making no allusion to the borrowed two shillings,
although he had already won several times two shillings from the country
fopling, returned to the latter and the dice, while Hal joined his own
party.

The sight of savory pastry and the smell of fish a-cooking had made some
of the players willing to stay and sup at the Boar's Head; but
Shakespeare reminded them that Mr. Burbage was to meet them at the
Mermaid later. So they rose presently to set forth, all of them, and
especially Hal Marryott, the warmer in head and heart for the wine they
had taken. Hal had become animated and talkative. A fuller and keener
sense of things possessed him,--of the day's success, of his own share
therein, of the merits of his companions and himself, and of the charms
of the lady in murrey and gray. So rich and vivid became his impression
of the unknown beauty, that there began to be a seeming as if she were
present in spirit. It was as if her immaterial presence pervaded the
atmosphere, as if she overheard the talk that now rattled from him, as
if her fine eyes were looking from Gothic church windows and the
overhanging gables of merchants' houses, while he walked on with the
players in the gathering dusk of evening. The party went westward, out
of Eastcheap, past London stone in Candlewick Street, through Budge Row
and Watling Street, and northward into Bread Street. The last was lined
with inns and taverns, and into one of the latter, on the west side of
the street, near "golden Cheapside," the actors finally strode. Its
broad, plastered, pictured front was framed and intersected by heavy
timbers curiously carved, and the great sign that hung before it was the
figure of a mermaid in the waves. The tavern stood a little space back
from the street, toward which its ground-floor casements projected far
out; and, in addition to its porched front entrance, it had passageways
at side and rear, respectively from Cheapside and Friday Street.[9]

The long room to which the players ascended had a blaze already in the
fireplace (chimneys having become common during the later Tudor reigns),
a great square oak table, a few armchairs, some benches, and several
stools. The tapestry on the walls was new, for the defeat of the Spanish
Armada, which it portrayed, had occurred but a dozen years before. Ere
the actors were seated, lighted candles had been brought, and Master
Heminge had stepped into the kitchen to order a supper little in accord
with the season (it was now Lent) or with the statutes, but obtainable
by the privileged,--ribs of beef, capon, sauces, gravies, custard, and
other trifles, with a bit of fish for the scrupulous. For players are
hungriest after a performance, and there have ever been stomachs least
fishily inclined on fish-days, as there are always throats most thirsty
for drink where none is allowed; and the hostess of the Mermaid was
evidently of a mind with Dame Quickly, who argued, "What's a joint of
mutton or two in a whole Lent?"[10] After their walk in the raw air, and
regardless of the customary order at meals, the players made a unanimous
call for mulled sack. The drawer, who had come at their bidding without
once crying "Anon," used good haste to serve it.

"Times have changed," said Mr. Shakespeare, having hung up cloak, hat,
and short rapier, and leaning back in his chair, with a relish of its
comfort after a day of exertion and tension. "'Tis not so long since
there were ever a dozen merry fellows to sup with us when we came from
the play."

"'Tis strange we see nothing of Raleigh," said Sly, standing by the
carved chimneypiece, and stretching his hands out over the fire.

"Nay, 'twould be stranger an he came to meet us now," said Laurence
Fletcher, "after his show of joy at the earl's beheading."

The allusion was to Raleigh's having witnessed from a window in the
Tower the death of his great rival, Essex.

"Nay," said Shakespeare, "though he was a foe to Essex, who was of our
patrons, Sir Walter is no enemy to us. I dare swear he hath stood our
advocate at court in our present disfavor. But while our friends of one
side are now in prison or seclusion, those of the other side stand aloof
from us. And for our player-fellowship, as rivalry among the great hath
made bitter haters, so hath competition among actors and scribblers
spoilt good comradeship."

"Thou'rt thinking how brawny Ben used to sit with us at this table,"
said Sly.

"And wishing he sat here again," said Shakespeare.

"Tut," said Condell, "he is happier at the Devil tavern, where his
heavy wisdom hath no fear of being put out of countenance by thy sharper
wit. Will."

"A pox on Ben Jonson for a surly, envious dog!" exclaimed Laurence
Fletcher. "I marvel to hear thee speak kindly of him, Will. After thy
soliciting us to play his comedy, for him to make a mock of thee and our
other writers, in the silly pedantic stuff those brats squeak out at the
Blackfriars!" Master Fletcher was, evidently, easily heated on the
subject of the satirical pieces written by Jonson for the Chapel Royal
boys to play at the Blackfriars Theatre, in which the Globe plays were
ridiculed.[11] "A pox on him, I say, and his tedious 'humors!'"
Whereupon Master Fletcher turned his attention to the beef, which had
just arrived.

"Nay," said Shakespeare, "his merit hath had too slow a greeting, and
too scant applause. So the wit in him hath soured a little,--as wine too
long kept exposed, for want of being in request."

"Well," cried Hal Marryott, warmed by copious draughts of the hot
sugared sack, "may I never drink again but of hell flame, nor eat but at
the devil's own table, if aught ever sour _me_ to such ingratitude for
thy beneficence, Master Shakespeare!"

"Go to, Harry! I have not benefited thee, nor Ben Jonson neither."

"Never, indeed! God wot!" exclaimed Hal, spearing with his knife-point
a slice of beef, to convey it from his platter to his mouth (forks were
not known in England till ten years later). "To open thy door to a
gentleman just thrown out of an ale-house, to feed him when he hath not
money to pay for a radish, to lodge him when he hath not right of tenure
to a dung-hill,--these are no benefits, forsooth."

"Was that thy condition, then, when he took thee as coadjutor?" Fletcher
asked, a little surprised.

"That and worse," answered Hal. "Hath Mr. Shakespeare never told you?"

"Never but thou wert a gentleman desirous of turning player. Let's hear
it, an thou wilt."

"Ay, let us!" cried Heminge and Condell; and Sly added: "For a player to
turn gentleman is nothing wonderful now, but that a gentleman should
turn player hath puzzled me."[12]

"Why," quoth Harry, now vivacious with wine, and quite ready to do most
of the talking, "you shall see how a gentleman might easily have turned
far worse than player. 'Twas when I was newly come to London, in 1598,
not three years ago. Ye've all heard me tell of the loss of mine estate
in Oxfordshire, through the deviltry of the law and of my kinsman. When
my cousin took possession, he would have got me provided for at one of
the universities, to be rid of me; but I had no mind to be made a poor
scholar of; for, look you, my bringing up in my father's house had been
fit for a nobleman's son. I knew my Latin and my lute, could hunt and
hawk with any, and if I had no practice at tilt and tourney, I made up
for that lack by my skill with the rapier. Well, just when I should have
gone to Italy. Germany, and France, for my education, my father died,
and my mother; and I was turned out of house, wherefore I say, a curse
on all bribe-taking judges and unnatural kin! I told my cousin what he
might do with the dirty scholarship he offered me, and a pox on it! and
swore I would hang for a thief ere I would take anything of his giving.
All that I had in the world was a horse, the clothes on my body,--for I
would not go back to his house for others, having once left it,--my
rapier and dagger, and a little purse of crowns and angels. There was
but one friend whom I thought it would avail me to seek, and to his
house I rode, in Hertfordshire. He was a Catholic knight, whose father
had sheltered my grandfather, a Protestant, in the days of Queen Mary,
and now went I to him, to make myself yet more his debtor in gratitude.
Though he had lived most time in France, since the Babington conspiracy,
he now happened to be at home; yet he could do nothing for me, his
estate being sadly diminished, and he about to sail again for the
country where Catholics are safer. But he gave me a letter to my lord
of Essex, by whom, as by my father, he was no less loved for being a
Catholic. When I read the letter, I thought my fortune made. To London I
rode, seeing myself already high in the great earl's service. At the
Bell, in Carter Lane, I lodged, and so gleesome a thing it was to me to
be in London, so many were the joys to be bought here, so gay the
taverns, so irresistible the wenches, that ere ever I found time to
present my letter to the earl I had spent my angels and crowns, besides
the money I had got for my horse in Smithfield. But I was easy in mind.
My lord would assuredly take me into his house forthwith, on reading my
friend's letter. The next morning, as I started for Essex House, a
gentleman I had met in the taverns asked me if I had heard the news. I
had not; so he told me. My lord of Essex had yesterday turned his back
on the queen, and clapped his hand upon his sword,--you remember the
time, masters--"

"Ay," said Sly. "The queen boxed his ears for it. The dispute was over
the governorship of Ireland."

"My lord was in disgrace," Hal went on, "and like to be charged with
high treason. So little I knew of court matters, I thought this meant
his downfall, and that the letter, if seen, might work only to my
prejudice and my friend's. So I burned it at the tavern fire, and
wondered what a murrain to do. I went to lodge in Honey Lane, pawned my
weapons, then my cloak, and finally the rest of my clothes, having
bought rags in Houndsditch in the meantime. Rather than go back to
Oxfordshire I would have died in the street, and was like to do so, at
last; for my host, having asked for his money one night when I was drunk
and touchy, got such an answer that he and his drawer cudgelled me and
threw me out. So bruised I was, that I could scarce move; but I got up,
and walked to the Conduit in Cheapside. There I lay down, full of aches;
and then was it that Mr. Shakespeare, returning late from the tavern,
happened to step on me as I lay blocking the way. What it was that moved
him to stop and examine me, I know not. But, having done so, he led me
to his lodgings in St. Helen's; whence, for one in my condition, it was
truly no downward step to the playhouse stage,--and thankful was I when
he offered me that step!"

"I perceived from the manner of thy groan, when I trod on thee, 'twas no
common vagabond under foot," said Shakespeare.

Later in the evening, Mr. Burbage came in, not to eat, for he had
already supped at his house in Holywell Street, Shoreditch, but to join
a little in the drinking. The room was now full of tobacco smoke, for
most of the players had set their pipes a-going. Mr. Shakespeare did not
smoke; but Hal Marryott, as a youth who could let no material joy go by
untasted, was as keen a judge of Trinidado or Nicotian as any sea-dog
from "the Americas."

"'Tis how many hundred years, Will, since this Prince Hamlet lived?"
said Heminge, the talk having led thereto; and he went on, not waiting
for answer, "Yet to-day we players bring him back to life, and make him
to be remembered."

"Ay," replied Shakespeare, "many a dead and rotten king oweth a
resurrection and posthumous fame to some ragged scholar or some poor
player."

"And we players," said Burbage, with a kind of sigh, "who make dead men
remembered, are by the very nature of our craft doomed to be forgot. Who
shall know our very names, three poor hundred years hence?"

"Why," said Condell, "our names might live by the printing of them in
the books of the plays we act in; a printed book will last you a long
time."

"Not such books as these thievish printers make of our plays," said Sly,
himself a writer of plays.

"Marry, I should not wish long life to their blundering, distorted
versions of any play I had a hand in making," said Shakespeare.

"But consider," said Condell; "were a decent printing made of all thy
plays, Will, all in one book, from the true manuscripts we have at the
theatre, and our names put in the book, Dick's name at the head, then
might not our names live for our having acted in thy plays?"

Mr. Burbage smiled amusedly, but said nothing, and Shakespeare answered:

"'Twould be a dead kind of life for them, methinks; buried in dusty,
unsold volumes in the book-sellers' shops in Paul's Churchyard."

"Nay, I would venture something," said Master Heminge, thoughtfully,
"that a book of _thy_ plays were sure to be opened."

"Ay, that some shopman's 'prentice might tear out the leaves, to wrap
fardels withal," said Shakespeare. "Three hundred years, Dick said. 'Tis
true, books of the ancients have endured to this day; but if the world
grows in learning as it hath in our own time, each age making its own
books, and better and wiser ones, what readers shall there be, think
you, in the year of our Lord 1900, for the rude stage-plays of Will
Shakespeare, or even for his poems, that be writ with more care?"

"'Twould be strange, indeed," said Burbage, "that a player should be
remembered after his death, merely for his having acted in some certain
play or set of plays." He did not add, but did he think, that Will
Shakespeare's plays were more like to be remembered, if at all, for Mr.
Burbage's having acted in them?[13]

"Why art thou silent, lad," said Shakespeare to Hal Marryott, by way of
changing the subject, "and thy gaze lost in thy clouds of smoke, as if
thou sawest visions there?"

"I' faith, I do see a vision there," said Harry, now in the enraptured
stage of wine, and eager to unbosom himself. "Would I were a poet, like
thee, that I might describe it. Ye gods, what a face! The eyes have
burned into my heart. Cupid hath made swift work of me!"

"Why, this must be since yesterday," said Sly.

"Since four o' the clock to-day," cried Hal.

"Then thou canst no more than have seen her," remarked Fletcher.

"To see her was to worship her. Drink with me to her eyes, an ye love
me, masters!"

"To her nose also, and mouth and cheeks and ears, an thou wilt," said
Sly, suiting action to word.

"Don't think this is love in thee, lad," said Fletcher. "Love is of
slower growth."

"Then all our plays are wrong," said Sly.

"Why, certes, it may be love," said Shakespeare. "Love is a flame of
this fashion: the first sight of a face will kindle it in shape of a
spark. An there be no further matter to fan and feed the spark withal,
'twill soon die, having never been aught but a spark, keen though its
scorch for a time; a mere seedling of love, a babe smothered at birth.
But an there be closer commerce, to give fuel and breeze to the spark,
it shall grow into flame, a flame, look you, that with proper feeding
shall endure forever, like sacred fires judiciously replenished and
maintained; but too much fuel, or too little, or a change in the wind,
will smother it, or starve it, or violently put it out. Harry hath the
spark well lighted, as his raving showeth, and whether it shall soon
burn out, or wax into a blaze, lies with future circumstance."

Harry declared that, if not otherwise fed, it would devour himself.
Thereupon Master Sly suggested drowning it in sack; and one would have
thought Hal was trying to do so. But the more he drank, the more was he
engulfed in ideas of her who had charmed him. Still having a kind of
delusion that she was in a manner present, he discoursed as if for her
to overhear.

Ere he knew it, the other players were speaking of bed. Mr. Burbage had
already slipped out to fulfil some mysterious engagement for the night
within the city, which matter, whatever it was, had been the cause of
his coming after supper from his home beyond the bars of Bishopsgate
Street without the walls. Master Heminge's apprentices (for Master
Heminge was a grocer as well as an actor) had come to escort him and
Master Condell to their houses in Aldermanbury; and sturdy varlets were
below to serve others of the company in like duty. At this late hour
such guards against robbers were necessary in London streets. But Harry,
who then lodged in the same house with Mr. Shakespeare, in St. Helen's,
Bishopsgate,[14] was not yet for going home. He would make the cannikin
clink for some hours more. Knowing the lad's ways, and his ability to
take care of himself, Mr. Shakespeare left him to his desires; and at
last Harry had no other companion than Will Sly, who still had head and
stomach for another good-night flagon or two. When Sly in turn was shaky
on his legs and half asleep, Harry accompanied him and his man to their
door, reluctantly saw it close upon them, and then, solitary in
night-wrapped London, looked up and down the narrow street, considering
which way to roam in search of congenial souls, minded, like himself, to
revel out the merry hours of darkness.

He loathed the thought of going to bed yet, and would travel far to find
a fellow wassailer. His three shillings--though that sum then would buy
more than a pound buys to-day--had gone at the Mermaid. He bethought
himself of the taverns at which he might have credit. The list not
offering much encouragement, he at last started off at random, leaving
events to chance.

Plunging and swaying, rather than walking, he traversed a few streets,
aimlessly turning what corners presented themselves. The creaking of
the signs overhead in the wind mingled with the more mysterious sounds
of the night. Once he heard a sudden rush of feet from a narrow lane,
and instantly backed against a doorway, whipping out rapier and dagger.
Two gaunt, ill-looking rascals, disclosed by a lantern hanging from an
upper window, stood back and inspected him a moment; then, probably
considering him not worth the risk, vanished into the darkness whence
they had emerged.

More roaming brought Hal into Paternoster Row, and thence into Ave Maria
Lane, giving him an occasional glimpse at the left, between houses, of
the huge bulk of St. Paul's blotting darkly a darkness of another tone.
At Ludgate, boldly passing himself off upon the blinking watchman as a
belated page of Sir Robert Cecil's, he got himself let through, when he
ought to have been taken before the constable as a night-walker; and so
down the hill he went into Fleet Street. The taverns were now closed for
the night to all outward appearance, the bells of Bow and other churches
having rung the curfew some hours since,--at nine o'clock. But Hal knew
that merriment was awake behind more than one cross-barred door-post or
red lattice; and he tried several doors, but in vain. At last he found
himself under the sign of the Devil, on the south side of the street,
close to Temple Bar. There was likelihood that Ben Jonson might be
there, for Ben also was a fellow of late hours. Hal's heart suddenly
warmed toward Master Jonson; he forgot the satire on the Globe plays,
the apparent ingratitude to Shakespeare, and thought only of the
convivial companion.

Much knocking on the door brought a servant of the tavern, by whom Hal,
learning that Master Jonson was indeed above, sent up his name. He was
at length admitted, and found his way to a large room in which he beheld
the huge form and corrugated countenance of him he sought. Master Jonson
filled a great chair at one side of a square table, and was discoursing
to a group of variously attired gentlemen. Temple students, and others,
this audience being in all different stages of wine. He greeted Master
Hal in a somewhat severe yet paternal manner, beckoned him to his
chair-side, and inquired in an undertone how Mr. Shakespeare fared.
Manifestly the "war of the theatres," as it was called, had not
destroyed the private esteem between the two dramatists. Hal's presence
caused the talk to fall, in time, upon the new "Hamlet," which some of
the then present members of the tribe of Ben had seen.

One young gentleman of the Temple, in the insolent stage of inebriety,
spoke sneeringly of the play; whereupon Hal answered hotly. Both flashed
out rapiers at the same instant, and as the table was between them Hal
leaped upon it, to reach more quickly his opponent. Only the prompt
action of Master Jonson, who mounted the table, making it groan beneath
his weight, and thrust himself between the two, cut short the brawl. But
now, each antagonist deeming himself the aggrieved person, and the
Templar being upheld by several of the company, and a great noise of
tongues arising, and the host running in to suppress the tumult, it was
considered advisable to escort Master Marryott from the place. He was
therefore hustled out by Master Jonson, the host, and a tapster; and so
found himself eventually in the street, the door barred against him.

He then perceived that he was without his rapier. It had been wrested
from him at the first interference with the quarrel. Wishing to recover
it, and in a wrathful spirit, he pounded on the door with his dagger
hilt, and called out loudly for the return of his weapon; but his
efforts being misinterpreted, he was left to pound and shout in vain.
Baffled and enraged, he started back toward Ludgate, with some wild
thought of enlisting a band of ruffians to storm the tavern. But the
wine had now got so complete possession of him that, when a figure
emerging from Water Lane bumped heavily against him, all memory of the
recent incident was knocked out of his mind.

"What in the fiend's name--"grumbled the newcomer; then suddenly changed
his tone. "Why, od's-body, 'tis Master Marryott! Well met, boy! Here be
thy two shillings, and never say Kit Bottle payeth not his debts. I've
just been helping my friend to his lodging here at the sign of the
Hanging Sword. 'Twas the least I could do for him. Art for a merry night
of it, my bawcock? Come with me to Turnbull Street. There be a house
there, where I warrant a welcome to any friend of Kit Bottle's. I've
been out of favor there of late, but now my pockets sing this tune" (he
rattled the coin in them), "and arms will be open for us."

Rejoiced at this encounter, Hal took the captain's arm, and strode with
him through Shoe Lane, across Holborn Bridge, through Cow Lane, past the
Pens of Smithfield, and so--undeterred by sleeping watchmen or by the
post-and-chain bar--into Turnbull Street.[15] Kit knocked several times
at the door of one of the forward-leaning houses, before he got a
response. Then a second-story casement was opened, and a hoarse female
voice asked who was below.

"What, canst not see 'tis old Kit, by the flame of his nose?" replied
the captain.

The woman told him to wait a minute, and withdrew from the window.

"See, lad," whispered Bottle, "'tis late hours when Kit Bottle can't
find open doors. To say true, I was afeard my welcome here might be a
little halting; but it seems old scores are forgot. We shall be merry
here, Hal!"

A sudden splash at their very feet made them start back and look up at
the window. A pair of hands, holding an upturned pail, was swiftly drawn
back, and the casement was then immediately closed.

Bottle smothered an oath. "Wert caught in any of that shower, lad?" he
asked Hal.

"'Scaped by an inch," said Hal, with a hiccough. "Marry, is this thy
welcome?"

Kit's wrath against the inmates of the house now exploded. Calling them
"scullions," "scavengers," and names still less flattering, he began
kicking and hammering on the door as if to break it down. Moved by the
spirit of violence, Hal joined him in this demonstration. The upper
windows opened, and voices began screaming "Murder!" and "Thieves!" In a
short time several denizens of the neighborhood--which was a
neighborhood of nocturnal habits--appeared in the street. Seeing how
matters stood, they fell upon Kit and Hal, mauling the pair with fists,
and tearing off their outer garments.

Soon a cry went up, "The watch!" whereupon Hal, with memories of
restraint and inconvenience to which he had once before been put, called
upon Kit to follow, and made a dash toward the end of the street. He
speedily was out of pursuit, and the sound of Bottle's voice growling
out objurgations, close behind him, satisfied him that the old soldier
was at his heels. Hal, therefore, ran on, making no impediment of the
bars, and passed the Pens without slack of speed. Stopping in Cow Lane
he looked back, and to his surprise saw that he was now quite alone.

He went immediately back over his tracks in search of Bottle, but found
no one. Turnbull Street had subsided into its former outward appearance
of desertion. Thinking that Bottle might have passed him in the
darkness, Hal returned southward. When he arrived in Fleet Street he
retained but a confused, whirling recollection of what had occurred. Yet
his mood was still for company and carouse. With great joy, therefore,
he observed that a humble little ale-house to which he sometimes
resorted, near Fleet Bridge, was opening for the day, as dawn was
appearing. He went in and ordered wine.

The tapster, who knew him, remarked with astonishment that he was
without hat or cloak; and the morning being very cold, and Hal unlikely
to meet any person of quality at that hour, the fellow offered him a
surcoat and cap, such as were worn by apprentices, to protect him from
chill on the way homeward. Hal, who was now half comatose, passively let
himself be thus fortified against the weather. With the sum repaid him
by Bottle he was able to buy good cheer; his only lack was of company
to share it with. He could not hope at this hour to fall in with another
late-hour man; it was now time for the early rising folk to be abroad.

In from the street came half a dozen hardy looking fellows, calling for
beer to be quickly drawn, as they had far to go to their work. Their
dress was of leather and coarse cloth, and the tools they carried were
those of carpenters. But to Hal, who now saw things vaguely, they were
but fellow mortals, and thirsty. He welcomed them with a flourish and an
imperative invitation to drink. This they readily accepted, grinning the
while with boorish amusement. When they perforce departed, Hal,
unwilling to lose new-found company so soon, attached himself to them;
and was several times hindered from dragging them into taverns as they
passed, by their promise, given with winks invisible to him, that they
would drink on arriving at their destination.

So he went, upheld between a pair of them, and heeding not the way they
took. Though it was now daylight, he was past recognizing landmarks. He
had the dimmest sense of passing a succession of walled and turreted
mansions at his left hand; then of catching glimpses of more open and
park-like spaces at his right hand; of going, in a grave kind of
semi-stupor, through two gateways and as many courtyards; of being
passed on, with the companions to whom he clung, by dull warders, and
by a busy, inattentive, pompous man of authority to whom his comrades
reported in a body; of traversing with them, at last, a passage and a
kind of postern, and emerging in a great garden. Here the carpenters
seemed to become sensible of having committed a serious breach in
sportively letting him be admitted as one of their own band. They held a
brief consultation, looking around in a half frightened way to see if
they were observed. They finally led him into an alley, formed by
hedgerows, deposited him gently on the ground, and hastened off to
another part of the garden. Once recumbent, he turned upon his side and
went instantly to sleep.

When he awoke, several hours later, without the least knowledge what
garden was this to which his eyes opened, or the least recollection how
he had come into it, he saw, looking down at him in mild surprise, a
slight, yellow-haired, pale-faced, high-browed, dark-eyed, elderly lady,
with a finely curved nose, a resolute mouth, and a sharp chin, and
wearing a tight-bodied, wide-skirted costume of silvered white velvet
and red silk, with a gold-laced, ermine-trimmed mantle, and a narrow,
peaked velvet hat. Hal, in his first bewilderment, wondered where it was
that he had previously seen this lady.

"Madam," he said, in a voice husky with cold, "I seem to be an
intruder. By your favor, what place is this?"

The lady looked at him sharply for a moment, then answered, simply:

"'Tis the garden of Whitehall palace. Who are you?"

Hal suppressed a startled exclamation. He remembered now where he had
seen the lady: 'twas at the Christmas court performances. He flung into
a kneeling posture, at her small, beribboned, cloth-shod feet.

"I am your Majesty's most loyal, most worshipful subject," he said.

"And what the devil are you doing here?" asked Queen Elizabeth.




CHAPTER III.

QUEEN AND WOMAN.

                "And commanded
          By such poor passion as the maid that milks."
                                              --_Antony and Cleopatra._


Though Queen Elizabeth often swore at her ladies and her favorite lords,
it is not to be supposed that she would ordinarily address a stranger in
such terms as she used but now toward Master Marryott.[16] Nor was it
the surprise of finding asleep in her garden a youth, wearing an
apprentice's surcoat over a gentleman's velvet doublet,--for Hal had
moved in his sleep so as to disclose part of the doublet,--and silken
hose, that evoked so curt an expression. Neither was it the possibility
that the intruder might be another Capt. Thomas Leigh, who had been
found lurking in the palace, near the door of the privy chamber, a day
or two after the Essex rising, and had been subsequently put to death.
Had a thought of assassination taken any root in the queen's mind at
sight of the slumbering youth, she would, doubtless, have behaved as on
a certain occasion at the time of the Babington conspiracy; when,
walking in her garden, and being suddenly approached by one of the
conspirators, and finding none of her guards within sight, she held the
intruder in so intrepid a look that he shrank back--and the captain of
her guard did not soon forget the rating she afterward gave him for that
she had been left thus exposed. But on the present occasion she herself
had petulantly ordered back the little train of gentlemen and ladies in
waiting, guards, and pages, who would have followed her into the alley
where she now was. They stood in separate groups, beyond the tall hedge,
out of view but not out of call, and wondering what had put her majesty
this morning into such a choleric desire for solitude. For that is what
she was in, and what made her words to Hal so unlike those commonly used
by stage royalty at the theatre.

What the devil _was_ he doing there? Hal asked himself, as he gazed
helplessly up at the queen. "I know not," he faltered. "I mean, I have
no memory of coming hither. But 'tis not the first time, your majesty, I
have waked up in a strange place and wondered at being there. I--I drank
late last night."

He put his hand to his aching head, in a manner that unconsciously
confirmed his confession; and then he looked at his coarse surcoat with
an amazement that the queen could not doubt.

"What is your name?" asked the queen, who seemed to have her own reason
for interrogating him quietly herself, instead of calling a guard and
turning him over to some officer for examination.

"Harry Marryott, an it please your Majesty. A player in the lord
chamberlain's company, though a gentleman by birth."

Elizabeth frowned slightly at the mention of the lord chamberlain's
company; but a moment after, strange to say, there came into her face
the sign of a sudden secret hope and pleasure.

"Being one of those players," said she, "you are well-wisher to the
foolish men who partook in the late treason?" She watched narrowly for
his answer.

"Not well-wisher to their treason, madam, I swear!"

"But to themselves?"

"As to men who have been our friends, we wish some of them whatever good
may consist with your Majesty's own welfare, which is the welfare of
England, the happiness of your subjects. But that wish makes no
diminution of our loyalty, which for myself I would give my life for a
chance of proving." He found it not difficult to talk to this queen, so
human was she, so outright, direct, and to the point.

"Why," she replied, in a manner half careless, half significant, as if
she were trying her way to some particular issue, "who knows but you
may yet have that chance, and at the same time fulfil a kind wish toward
one of those misguided plotters. An you were to be trusted--but nay,
your presence here needs some accounting for. Dig your memory, man;
knock your brains, and recall how you came hither. Tis worth while,
youth, for you doubtless know what is supposed of men found
unaccountably near our person, and what end is made of them."

Hal was horrified and heartstricken. "Madam," he murmured, "if my queen,
who is the source and the object of all chivalrous thoughts in every
gentleman's breast in England, one moment hold it possible that I am
here for any purpose against her, let me die! Call guards, your Majesty,
and have me slain!"

"Nay," said Elizabeth, convinced and really touched by his feeling, "I
spoke not of what I thought, but of what others might infer. Now that I
perceive your quality, it hath come to me that you might serve me in a
business that needs such a man,--a man not known at court, and whom it
would appear impossible I could have given audience to. Indeed, I was
pondering on the difficulty of finding such a man in the time afforded,
and in no very sweet humor either, when the sight of you broke in upon
my thoughts."

"To serve your Majesty in any business would be my supremest joy," said
Hal, eagerly--and truly. His feeling in this was that of all young
English gentlemen of his time.

"But this tells me not how came you into my private garden," said her
Majesty.

"I remember some dispute at the Devil tavern," replied Harry, searching
his memory. "And roaming the streets with one Captain Bottle, and being
chased out of some neighborhood or other--and there I lose myself. It
seems as if I went lugging forward through the streets, holding to an
arm on either side, and then plunged quite out of this world, into
cloud, or blackness, or nothing. Why, it is strange--meseems yonder
workman, at the end of this alley, had some part in my goings last
night."

The workman was a carpenter, engaged in erecting a wooden framework for
an arched hedge that was to meet at right angles the alley in which the
queen and Harry were. The man's work had brought him but now into their
sight.

The queen, who on occasion could be the most ceremonial monarch in
Christendom, could, when necessary, be the most matter-of-fact. She now
gave a "hem" not loud enough for her unseen attendants to hear, but
sufficient to attract the carpenter's attention. He stood as if
petrified, recognizing the queen, then fell upon knees that the presence
of Majesty had caused to quake. Elizabeth motioned him to her, and he
approached, walking on his knees, in expectation of being instantly
turned over to a yeoman of the guard. Hal himself remained in similar
posture, which was the attitude Elizabeth required of all who addressed
her.

"What know you of this young gentleman?" she asked the carpenter, in a
tone that commanded like quietness in his manner of replying.

The fellow cringed and shook, begged huskily for mercy, and said that he
had meant no harm; explained incoherently that the young gentleman,
having fallen in with the carpenters when in his cups, had come with
them to Whitehall in the belief that they were leading him to a
drinking-place; that they had been curious to see his surprise when the
porters, guards, or palace officers should confront him; that these
functionaries had inattentively let him pass as one of the carpenters;
that the carpenters had feared to disclaim him after having missed the
proper moment for doing so. The fellow then began whimpering about his
wife and eight children, who would starve if he were hanged or
imprisoned. The queen cut him short by ordering that he and his comrades
should say nothing of this young man's presence, as they valued their
lives; hinted at dire penalties in case of any similar misdemeanor in
future, and sent him back to his work.

"God's death!" she then said to Hal. "Watchful porters and officers!
I'll find those to blame, and they shall smart for their want of eyes. A
glance at your hose and shoes, muddy though they be, would have made you
out no workman. Yet perchance I shall have cause not to be sorry for
their laxity this once. If it be that you are the man to serve me, I
shall think you God-sent to my hand, for God he knows 'twas little like
I should find in mine own palace a man not known there, and whom it
should not seem possible I might ever have talked withal! Even had I
sent for such an one, or had him brought to the palace for secret
audience, there had needs been more trace left of my meeting him than
there need be of my meeting you."

Hal perceived not why so absolute a monarch need conduct any matter
darkly, or hide traces of her hand in it; but he said nothing, save
that, if it might fall his happy lot to serve her, the gift from God
would be to himself.

As for the queen, she had already made up her mind that he should serve
her. It must be he, or no one. She had come to the garden from her privy
council, with a certain secret act in her mind, an act possible to her
if the right agent could be found; but in despair of finding in the
given time such an agent,--one through whom her own instigation of the
act could never be traced by the smallest circumstance. Here, as if
indeed dropped from heaven, was a possible agent having that most
needed, least expected, qualification. There need not remain the
slightest credible evidence of his present interview with her. This
qualification found so unexpectedly, without being sought, she was
willing to risk that the young player possessed the other requisites,
uncommon though they were. She believed he was loyal and chivalrous;
therefore he would be as likely to keep her secret, at any hazard to
himself, as to serve her with all zeal and with as much skill as he
could command. By seeming to hold back her decision as to whether he
might do her errand, she but gave that errand the more importance, and
whetted his ambition to serve her in it.

"There is much to be said," replied the queen, "and small time to say it
in. 'Tis already some minutes since I left my people without the hedge
and came into this alley. They will presently think I am long meditating
alone. They must not know I have seen you, or that you were here. So we
must needs speak swiftly and quietly. As for those carpenters, who are
all that know of your presence here. I have thrown that fellow into so
great a fear, he and his mates will keep silence. Now heed. My privy
council hath evidence of a certain gentleman's part in the conspiracy of
your friends who abetted the Lord Essex. 'Tis evidence positive enough,
and plenty enough, to take off his head, or twenty heads an he had
them. He hath not the slightest knowledge that he is betrayed. 'Tis very
like he sits at home, in the country, thinking himself secure, while the
warrant is being writ for his arrest. The pursuivant to execute the
warrant is to set out with men this afternoon. So much delay have I
contrived to cause."

"Delay, your Majesty?" echoed Hal, thinking he might have wrongly heard.

"Delay," repeated Elizabeth, using for her extraordinary disclosures a
quite ordinary tone. "I have delayed this messenger of the council for
time to plan how the gentleman may escape before the arrest can be
made."

She waited a moment, till Hal's look passed back from surprise to
careful attention.

"You wonder that a queen, who may command all, should use secret means
in such a matter. You wonder that I did not put my prohibition, at the
outset, on proceedings against this gentleman. Or that I do not now
order them stopped, by my sovereign right. Or that I do not openly
pardon him, now or later. You do not see, young sir, that sometimes a
monarch, though all-powerful, may have reason to sanction or even
command a thing, yet have deep-hidden reason why the thing should be
undone."

Hal bowed. He had little knowledge, or curiosity, regarding the
mysteries of state affairs, and easily believed that the general weal
might be promoted by the queen's outwardly authorizing a subject's
arrest, and then secretly compassing his escape. And yet he might have
known that a Tudor's motives in interfering with the natural course of
justice were more likely to be private than public, and that a Tudor's
circumstances must be unusual indeed to call for clandestine means,
rather than an arbitrary mandate, for such interference. It was not till
long afterward that, by putting two and two together, he formed the
theory which it is perhaps as well to set forth now, at the opening of
our history.

The Essex conspiracy was not against the person or supremacy of the
queen, but against her existing government, which the plotters hoped to
set aside by making her temporarily a prisoner and forcing her decrees.
They avowed the greatest devotion to her Majesty's self. As a woman, she
had little or no reason for bitter feelings against them. But the safety
of the realm required that the principals should suffer. Yet she might
have pardoned her beloved Essex, had she received the ring he sent her
in claim of the promise of which it was the pledge.[17] But thinking him
too proud even to ask the mercy he might have had of her, she let him
die. As for his chief satellites, there were some for whom she cared
nothing, some against whom there were old scores, and who might as well
be dead or imprisoned as not, even were public policy out of the
question. Southampton, for one, had offended her by marrying, and had
later been a cause of sharp passages between her and Essex. But as to
this mysterious gentleman, of whom she spoke to Master Marryott?

He was one of those who had contrived to get safe away from London, and
who felicitated themselves that there existed no trace of their
connection with the plot, but against whom evidence had eventually
arisen in private testimony before the council. Of these men, it was
decided by the council to make at least one capital example, and this
particular gentleman was chosen, for his being a Catholic as well as a
conspirator.

Now the fact seems to have been that Elizabeth, the woman, had softer
recollections of this gentleman than Elizabeth, the queen, was fain to
acknowledge to third parties. He was not alone in this circumstance, but
he differed from Essex and other favored gentlemen in several
particulars. Being a Catholic, he was not of the court. Once, many years
before this March day, the queen, while hunting, sought refuge at his
house from a sudden storm. She prolonged her stay on pretexts, and then
kept him in attendance during one of her journeyings. Her association
with him was conducted with unusual concealment. It was not violently
broken off, nor carried on to satiety and natural death. It was merely
interrupted and never resumed. Thus it remained sweet in her memory,
took on the soft, idealizing tones that time gives, and was now
cherished in her heart as an experience apart from, and more precious
than, all other such. It was the one serene, perfect love-poem of her
life. The others had been stormy, and mixed with a great deal of prose.
This one might have been written by Mr. Edmund Spenser. And it was the
dearer to her for its being a secret. No one had ever known of it but a
tight-mouthed old manservant and a faithful maid of honor, the former
now infirm, the latter dead.

She could not endure to mar this, her pet romance, by letting its hero
die when it was in her power to save him. She had never put forth her
hand, nor had he asked her to do so, to shield him from the smaller
persecutions to which his religion had exposed him from neighbors and
judges and county officers, and which had forced him to live most of the
time an exile in France. But death was another matter, a catastrophe she
liked not to think of as overtaking him through operations she could
control; and this was none the less true though she had no hope of ever
meeting him again.

Moreover, this lover had upon her affection one claim that others had
forfeited: he had never married.[18] That alone entitled him at this
time, in her eyes, to a consideration not merited by Essex or
Southampton. And, again, her fortitude had been so drawn upon in
consigning Essex to the block, that she had not sufficient left to
tolerate the sacrifice of this other sharer of her heart.

Now that fortitude had been greatly, though tacitly, admired by the
lords to whom she wished to appear the embodiment of regal firmness, and
she could not bring herself to confess to them that it was exhausted, or
unequal to the next demand upon it. More than ever, in these later days,
she desired to appear strong against her inner feelings, or indeed to
appear quite above such inner feelings as she had too often shown toward
her favorite gentlemen. That she, the Virgin Queen, leader of her
people, conqueress of the great Armada, had entertained such feelings in
the past, and been so foolish as to disclose them, was the greater
reason why she now, when about to leave her final impression upon
history, should seem proof against them. To refuse her sanction to the
council's decision concerning this gentleman, when there was twofold
political reason for that decision, and no political reason to interpose
against it, would open the doors upon her secret. And she was as loath
to expose her tenderly recollected love to be even suspected or guessed
at, such was the ideal and sacred character it had taken in years of
covert memory, as she was to be thought still prone to her old weakness.
As for awaiting events and eventually saving the man by a pardon, such
a course, in view of her having sanctioned the council's choice of him
as an example, would disclose her as false to the council, and
capricious beyond precedent, and would betray her secret as well.[19]

So here was one case in which she dared not arbitrarily oppose the
council's proceeding, though her old lover's arrest meant his
conviction, as sure as verdict was ever decided ere judge and jury
sat,--as verdicts usually were in the treason trials of that blessed
reign. For her peace as a woman, she must prevent that arrest. For her
reputation as a queen, she must seem to favor it, and the prevention
must be secret. One weakness, the vanity of strength and resolution,
required that the indulgence of another weakness, undue tenderness of
heart toward a particular object, should be covert. The queen's right
hand must not know what the woman's left hand did. To get time for a
plan, as she told Hal, she had requested that the pursuivant's men,
while in quest of the gentleman, might bear letters to certain justices
in his neighborhood; the preparation of these letters would delay, for a
few hours, the departure of the warrant.

For her purpose she needed a man of courage, adroitness, and celerity;
one who would be loyal to the secret reposed in him alone; one so out of
court circles, so far from access to or by herself, that if he ever
should betray her part in his mission none would believe him; a man who
would take it on faith, as Hal really did, that deep state reasons
dictated the nullification, secretly, of a proceeding granted
openly,--for this strong queen would not have even the necessary
confidant, any more than the lords of the council, suspect this weak
woman.

"The man who is my servant in this," went on the queen, "must seem to
act entirely for himself, not for me. There must be no evidence of his
having served me; so he will never receive the credit of this mission
for his sovereign, save in that sovereign's thoughts alone."

"Where else should he seek it, your Majesty?" replied Hal, brought to
this degree of unselfish chivalry by the influence of her presence.

"Where else, truly?" echoed the queen, with a faint smile. "And he must
never look to me for protection, should he find himself in danger of
prison or death, in consequence of this service. Indeed, if pressure
move him to say 'twas I commissioned him, I shall declare it a lie of
malice or of deep design, meant to injure me."

"Your Majesty shall not be put to that shift, an I be your happy choice
for the business," said Hal, thrilling more and more devotedly to the
task as it appeared the more perilous and rewardless.

"You will be required to go from London," continued the queen,
forgetting her pretence that he was not yet certainly her choice for the
errand, "and to give your friends good reason for your absence."

"'Twill be easy," replied the player. "Our company goes travelling next
week. I can find necessity for preceding them. One Master Crowe can play
my parts till I fall in with them again."

"Even this gentleman," resumed the queen, after a moment's thought, and
a consultation with pride and prudence, "must not know whom you obey in
saving him. Your knowledge of his danger must seem to have come through
spy work, or treachery in the palace, and your zeal for his safety must
appear to spring from your friendship for the Essex party. The
gentleman's mansion is near Welwyn, in Hertfordshire. He is a knight,
one Sir Valentine Fleetwood."

Hal suppressed a cry. "Why, then," he said, "I can truly appear to act
for myself in saving him. He is my friend, my benefactor; his father
saved my grandfather's life in the days of papistry. I shall not be put
to the invention of false reasons for saving Sir Valentine. There is
reason enough in friendship and gratitude. I knew not he was back in
England."

"That is well," said Elizabeth, checking a too hearty manifestation of
her pleasure at the coincidence. "Now hear what you shall do. The
pursuivant who is to apprehend him will ride forth this afternoon at
about three o' the clock, with a body of men. You must set out earlier,
arrive at Fleetwood house before them, warn Sir Valentine that they are
coming, persuade him to fly, whether he will or no, and in every
possible manner aid and hasten his safe departure from the country."

Hal bowed. His look betrayed some disappointment, as if the business
were neither as difficult nor as dangerous as he had looked for.

The queen smiled.

"You think it a tame and simple matter," she said. "A mere business of
fast riding 'twixt London and Welwyn, and thence to a seaport. But allow
for the unexpected, young sir, which usually befalleth! Suppose
impediments hinder you, as they hinder many on shorter journeys. Or
suppose Sir Valentine be not at home when you arrive, and require
seeking lest he by chance fall in with the pursuivant ere you meet him.
Suppose he be not of a mind to fly the country, but doubt your warning,
or choose to stay and risk trial rather than invite outlawry and
confiscation. Suppose, in aiding him, you encounter the pursuivant and
his men.[20] 'Twill be your duty to resist them to the utmost, even with
your life. And should you be overcome and taken, you know what are the
penalties of resisting officers on the queen's business, and of giving
aid to her enemies. This business will make you as much a traitor, by
statute, as Sir Valentine himself. Remember, if you be taken I shall not
interfere in your behalf. It shall be that I know naught of you, and
that I hold your act an impudent treason against myself, and call for
your lawful death. So think not 'tis some holiday riding I send you on;
and go not lightly as 'twere a-maying. Be ready for grave dangers and
obstructions. Look to't ye be not taken! Perchance your own safety may
yet lie in other countries for a time, ere all is done. Look for the
unexpected, I tell you."

"I shall be heedful, your majesty. I crave your pardon,--'tis shame I
must confess it,--there will be horses to obtain, and other matters; I
lack means--"

"By God's light, 'tis well I came by a purse-full this morning, and
forgetfully bore it with me, having much on my mind," said Elizabeth,
detaching a purse from her girdle and handing it to Hal. "I'm not wont
of late to go so strong in purse.[21] Pour these yellow pieces into your
pocket--no need to count--and leave but two or three to make some noise
withal." When Hal had obeyed her, she took back the purse and replaced
it at her girdle. "Use what you need in the necessary costs; supply Sir
Valentine an he require money, and let the rest be payment to yourself.
Nay, 'twill be small enough, God's name! Yet I see no more reward for
you--until all be smoothly done, and time hath passed, and you may find
new access to me in other circumstance. Then I shall remember, and find
way of favoring you."

Hal thereupon had vague, distant visions of himself as a gentleman
pensioner, and as a knight, and as otherwise great; but he said only:

"The trust you place in me is bounteous reward, your Majesty!"

To which her Majesty replied:

"Bid yon carpenter lead you from the garden by private ways, that you
may pass out as you entered, in the guise of a workman. Lose no time,
thenceforth,--and God bless thee, lad!"

Hal was in the seventh heaven. She had actually thee'd him! And now she
held out her hand, which he, on his knees, touched with reverential
lips. It was a shapely, beautiful hand, even to the last of the queen's
days; and a shapely, beautiful thing it was to remain in Hal's mental
vision to the last of his. In a kind of dream he stepped back, bowing,
to the alley's end. When he raised his eyes, the queen had turned, and
was speeding toward the other end of the alley. A March wind was
following her, between the high hedgerows, disturbing two or three tiny
twigs that had lain in the frozen path.[22]

At that moment Hal counted his life a small thing save where it might
serve her; while she, who had read him through in five minutes, was
thanking her stars for the miraculous timely advent of an agent so
peculiarly suited to so peculiar a service,--a youth of some worldly
experience, yet with all those chivalrous illusions which make him the
greedier of a task as it is the more dangerous, the more zealous in it
as it offers the less material reward. The romantic sophistries that
youth cherishes may be turned to great use by those who know how to
employ them. Indeed, may not the virtue of loyalty and blind devotion
have been an invention of ingenious rulers, for their own convenience?
May not that of woman-worship be an invention of subtly clever women
themselves, when women were wisely content with being worshipped, and
were not ambitious of being elbowed and pushed about in the world's
business; when they were satisfied to be the divinities, not the
competitors, of men? Elizabeth knew that this player's head, heart, and
hand were now all hers for the service engaged; and that by entrusting
him with a large amount in gold, in advance, she but increased his sense
of obligation to perform her errand without failing in a single point.

As he passed Charing Cross and proceeded eastward through the Strand,
Hal became aware of the pains caused by his sleeping outdoors in March
weather, and of the headache from last night's wine. In his interview
with the queen, he had been unconscious of these. But he foresaw
sufficient bodily activity to rid himself of them, with the aid of a
copious warming draught and of a breakfast. He obtained the warming
draught at the first tavern within Temple Bar, which was none other than
the Devil. A drawer recognized him, despite the 'prentice's coat and
cap,--no one who knew Master Marryott could be much surprised at his
having got into any possible strange attire in some nocturnal
prank,--and notified the landlord, who thereupon restored to Hal the
rapier taken away the previous night. From the Devil tavern, Hal went to
three or four shops farther in Fleet Street, and when he emerged from
the last of these he wore a dull green cloth cloak, brown-lined, over
his brown velvet doublet; a featherless brown hat of ample brim on his
head, and high riding-boots to cover the nether part of his brown silk
trunk-hose.

He had already looked his errand in the face, and made some plan for
dealing with it. As he would be no match for a band of highway robbers,
should he fall in with such between London and Welwyn, he must have at
least one stout attendant. Fortunately. Paul's Walk, the place in which
to obtain either man or woman for any service or purpose whatever, lay
in his way to his lodging, where he must go before leaving London. He
hastened through Ludgate, with never a glance at the prisoners whining
through the iron grates their appeals for charity; and into Paul's
Churchyard, and strode through the southern entrance of the mighty
cathedral, making at once for the middle aisle.

It was the fashionable hour for the Paul's walkers,--about noon,--and
the hubbub of a vast crowd went up to the lofty arches overhead. The
great minster walk, with its column on which advertisements were hung,
its column around which serving-men stood waiting to be hired, its other
particular spots given over by custom to particular purposes, was to
London at midday what the interior of the Exchange was by
candle-light,--a veritable place of lounging, gossiping, promenading,
trading, begging, pimping, pocket-picking, purse-cutting, everything.
Hal threaded a swift way through the moving, chattering, multi-colored
crowd, with an alert eye for the manner of man he wanted. Suddenly he
felt a pull at his elbow; and turned instantly to behold a dismal
attempt at gaiety on the large-boned red face of Captain Bottle. Beneath
his forced grin, old Kit was in sadly sorry countenance, which made his
attire look more poor and ragged than usual.

"What, old heart!" cried Kit. "Thou'rt alive, eh? Bones of Mary, I
thought thee swallowed up by some black night-walking dragon in Cow Lane
this morning!"

"We were together last night, I think," said Hal, not with positive
certainty.

"Together, i' faith, till by my cursing and hard breathing I killed in
mine ears the sound of thy steps, so I could not follow thee. Ah, Hal,
there was the foul fiend's hand in the separating of us! For, being
alone, and sitting down to rest me in the street, without Newgate, what
should happen but I should fall asleep, and my purse be cut ere I waked?
Old Kit hath not e'en a piece of metal left, to mimic the sound of coin
withal!" Old Kit's look was so blue at this that Hal knew he was truly
penniless, though whether the loss of his money had been as he related
it, was a question for which Hal had no answer. The captain's eyes were
already inclining toward that part of Hal's costume where his money was
commonly bestowed.

"This evil town is plainly too much for thy rustical innocence, Kit,"
said Hal. "You need a country change. Come with me for a few days. Don't
stare. I have private business, and require a man like thee. There's
meat, drink, and beds in it, while it lasts; some fighting maybe, and
perchance a residue of money when costs are paid. If there be, we shall
divide equally. Wilt follow me?"

"To the other side of the round world, boy! And though old Kit be
something of a liar and guzzler, and a little of a cheater and boaster,
thou'lt find him as faithful as a dog, and as companionable a rascal as
ever lived!"

"Then take this money, and buy me two horses in Smithfield, all
equipped; and meet me with them at two o'clock, in St. John's Street,
close without the bar. But first get thyself dinner, and a warm cloak to
thy back. Haste, old dog o' war! There will be swift going for us,
maybe, ere many suns set!"

The two left St. Paul's together by the north door. Bottle going on
northward toward the Newgate,[23] Hal turning eastward toward St.
Helen's, where he would refresh himself with a bath and food, and tell
Mr. Shakespeare of news given him by a court scrivener in drunken
confidence; of an imperative obligation to go and warn a friend in
danger; of money won in dicing; of a willingness to resign his parts to
Gil Crowe, and of his intention to rejoin the players at the first
opportunity, wherever they might be.

As he turned out Bishopsgate Street, he thought how clear his way lay
before him, and smiled with benignant superiority to his simple task.
And then suddenly, causing his smile to fade a little, came back to him
the words of the queen, "Allow for the unexpected, young sir, which
usually befalleth!"




CHAPTER IV.

THE UNEXPECTED.

                "The affair cries haste.
          And speed must answer it."--_Othello_.


At two o'clock that afternoon,--it was Tuesday, the third day of
March,--Master Marryott and Capt. Christopher Bottle rode northward from
Smithfield bars, in somewhat different aspect and mood from those in
which they had gone through their adventure in the same neighborhood the
previous night. They were well mounted; for Kit Bottle was not the man
to be gulled by the jinglers of the Smithfield horse-market, and knew,
too well for his own good reputation, how to detect every trick by which
the jockeys palmed off their jades on buyers who judged only by
appearances.

They were fitly armed, too; for Hal, before rejoining the captain, had
procured pistols as reinforcements to his rapier and dagger, and Kit had
so far exceeded instructions as to do likewise. The captain as yet knew
not what Hal's mission was, and he was too true a soldier to exhibit any
curiosity, if he felt any. But there was always a possibility of use
for weapons, in travelling in those days; even on the much-frequented
road from London to St. Albans ("as common as the way between St. Albans
and London," said Poins, of Doll Tearsheet), in which thoroughfare,
until he should turn out beyond Barnet. Hal's course lay. It was a
highway that, not far out of London, became like all other roads of the
time narrow and rutty, often a mere ditch below the level of the fields,
woods, or commons, at either side; rarely flanked, as in later times, by
hedges, walls, or fences of any kind; passing by fewer houses, and
through smaller villages, than it is now easy to imagine its doing.

On this, as on every English road, most passenger travel was by
horseback or afoot, although the great, had their coaches, crude and
slow-moving. Most transportation of goods was by pack-horse, the
carriers going in numerous company for safety; though huge, lumbering,
covered stage-wagons had already appeared on certain chief highways,
with a record of something like two miles an hour. The royal post for
the bearing of letters was in a primitive and uncertain state.
Travelling by post was unknown, in the later sense of the term: such as
it was, it was a luxury of the great, who had obvious means of arranging
for relays of horses; and of state messengers, who might press horses
for the queen's service. When ordinary men were in haste, and needed
fresh horses, they might buy them, or trade for them, or hire them from
carriers, or from stable-keepers where such existed. But the two animals
obtained by Bottle in Smithfield, though neither as shapely nor as small
as Spanish jennets, were quite sufficient for the immediate
purpose,--the bearing of their riders, without stop, to Welwyn.

Islington and Highgate were passed without incident, and Hal, while
soothed in his anxiety to perform his mission without a hitch, began to
think again that the business was too easy to be interesting. As a young
gentleman of twenty-two who had read "The Faerie Queen" for the romance
and not for the allegory, he would have liked some opportunity to play
the fighting knight in service of his queen. On Finchley Common he
looked well about, half in dread, half in hope; whereupon Captain
Bottle, as taking up a subject apropos, began to discourse upon highway
robbers. From considering the possibilities of a present encounter with
them, he fell to discussing their profession in a business light.

"An there must be vile laws to ruin gentlemen withal, and hard peace to
take the bread out of true soldiers' mouths, beshrew me but bold robbing
on the highway is choicer business than a parson's, or a lawyer's, or a
lackey's in some great house, or even coney-catching in the taverns!
When I was put to it to get my beef and clary one way or another, I
stayed in London, thinking to keep up my purse by teaching fence; but
'tis an overcrowded vocation, and the rogues that can chatter the most
Italian take all the cream. So old Kit must needs betake himself to a
gentlemanly kind of gull-catching, never using the false dice till the
true went against him, look you; nor bullying a winner out of the stakes
when they could be had peaceably; and always working alone, disdaining
to fellow with rascally gangs. But often I have sighed that I did not as
Rumney did,--he that was mine ancient in the campaigns in Spain and
Ireland. When the nation waxed womanish, and would have no more of war,
Rumney, for love of the country, took to the highways, and I have heard
he hath thrived well about Sherwood forest and toward Yorkshire. 'Twas
my choice of a town life hindered me being his captain on the road as I
had been in the wars. I hear he calleth himself captain now! Though he
puts his head oftener into the noose than I, and runs more risk of sword
and pistol, his work is the worthier of a soldier and gentleman for
that. Yet I do not call Rumney gentleman, neither! A marvellous scurvy
rogue! But no coward. Would that thy business might take us so far as we
should fall in with the rascal! I should well like to drink a gallon of
sack with the rascally cur, in memory of old times, or to stab him in
the paunch for a trick he did me about a woman in the Low Countries!"

Finchley Common was crossed without threat of danger, the only rogues
met being of the swindling, begging, feigning, pilfering order, all
promptly recognized and classified by the experienced captain. Nor did
Whetston or Barnet or Hatfield, or the intervening country, yield any
event, save that a clock struck six, and the day--gray enough at
best--was on the wane when they passed through Hatfield. They had made
but five miles an hour, the road, though frozen, being uneven and
difficult, and Hal assuming that the pursuivant, ignorant of a plan to
forewarn Sir Valentine, would not greatly hasten. He relied on the
hour's start he had taken out of London, and he saved his horses to meet
any demand for speed that might suddenly arise. At the worst, if the
officer and his men came up behind him, he could increase his pace and
outride them to Welwyn. And thus it was that he let no northbound riders
pass him, and that when such riders, of whatever aspect, appeared in the
distant rear, he spurred forward sufficiently to leave them out of
sight.

On the hill, two or three miles beyond Hatfield, he stopped and looked
back over the lower country, but could make out no group of horsemen in
the gathering darkness. His destination was now near at hand, and he was
still unsettled between opposite feelings,--satisfaction that his
errand seemed certain of accomplishment, regret that there seemed no
prospect of narrow work by which he might a little distinguish himself
in his own eyes. The last few miles he rode in silence, Bottle having
ceased prattling and become meditative under the influence of nightfall.

It was seven o'clock when they rode across the brook into close view of
Welwyn church at the left of the road, and a few minutes later when they
drew up before the wall in front of Fleetwood house,--of which Hal knew
the location, through visits in former years,--and began to pound on the
barred gate with their weapons, and to call "Ho, within!"

The mansion beyond the wall was a timbered one, its gables backed by
trees. It had no park, and its wall enclosed also a small orchard at the
rear, and a smaller courtyard at the front. At one side of the gate was
a porter's lodge, but this was at present vacant, or surely the knocking
on the wooden gate would have brought forth its occupant. It seemed as
if the house was deserted, and Hal had a sudden inward sense of
unexpected obstacle, perhaps insuperable, in his way. His heart beat a
little more rapidly, until Kit, having ridden to where he could see the
side of the house, reported a light in the side window of a rear
chamber. Hal thereupon increased his hallooing, with some thought of
what might occur if the pursuivants should come up ere he got
admission.

At length there appeared a moving nebula of light amidst the darkness
over the yard; it approached the gate; steps were heard on the walk
within; finally a little wicket was opened in the gate, and a long,
bearded, sour face was visible in the light of a lanthorn held up by its
owner.

"Who is it disturbeth the night in this manner?" asked a nasal voice, in
a tone of complaint and reproof.

"'Tis I, Master Underhill," spoke Hal, from his horse, "Master Harry
Marryott, Sir Valentine's friend. I must see Sir Valentine without a
moment's delay," and he started to dismount.

"I know not if thou canst see Sir Valentine without delay, or at all
whatsoever," replied the man of dismal countenance. His face had the
crow's feet and the imprinted frown of his fifty years, and there was
some gray on his bare head.

"Not see him!" blurted out Hal. "What the devil--open me the gate this
instant or I'll teach thee a lesson! Dost hear, Anthony?"

"Yield not to thy wrath nor call upon the foul fiend, Master Marryott,"
said Anthony, severely. "I shall go decently and in order, and learn if
thou mayst be admitted." And he leisurely closed the wicket to return to
the house.

Hal could scarce contain himself for anger. Being now afoot he called
after the man, and hammered on the gate, but with no effect of recalling
or hastening him.

"A snivelling Puritan, or I'm a counterfeit soldier!" observed Kit
Bottle, in a tone of contempt and detestation.[24]

"Ay," said Hal, "and all the worse whiner because, out of inherited
ties, he serveth a Catholic master. The old groaner,--that he should put
me to this delay when Sir Valentine's life is at stake!"

This was Hal's first intimation to Kit of the real nature of his
business. The captain received it without comment, merely asking if he
should dismount.

"No," said Hal, tying his own horse to the gate; "but when I am
admitted, ride you back to the village, and listen for the sound of
hoofs from the direction of London; if you hear such, come swiftly back,
hallooing at the top of thy voice, and get off thy horse, and hold him
ready for another to mount in thy stead. A hundred curses on that Tony
Underhill! He hath been Sir Valentine's steward so long, he dareth any
impertinence. And yet he never stayed me at the gate before! And his
grave look when he said he knew not if I might see Sir Valentine! 'Twas
a more solemn face than even he is wont to wear. Holy Mary! can it be
that they are here already,--that they have come before me?"

"An it be men in quest of Sir Valentine, you mean," said Kit, who was of
quick divination, "where be their horses? They would scarce stable them,
and make a visit. Nor would all be so quiet and dark."

"And yet he looked as something were amiss," replied Hal, but partly
reassured.

The faint mist of light appeared again, the deliberate steps were heard,
and this time the gate was unbarred and slowly drawn a little space
open. In the lanthorn's light was seen the spare, tall figure that went
with the long, gloomy face.

"I will conduct thee to Sir Valentine," said Anthony. Hal stepped
forward with an exclamation of relief and pleasure, and Kit Bottle
instantly started his horse back toward the village.

Hal followed the Puritan steward through a porched doorway, across a
hall, up a staircase that ascended athwart the rear, and thence along a
corridor, to the last door on the side toward the back of the house.
Anthony softly opened this door.

Hal entered a chamber lighted by two candles on a table, and containing
in one corner a large high-posted bed. On the table, among other things,
lay an ivory crucifix. A plainly dressed gentleman sat on a chair
between the table and the bed. To this gentleman, without casting a look
at his face, Hal bowed respectfully, and began, "I thank God, Sir
Valentine--"

"Nay, sir," answered the gentleman, quietly, as if to prevent some
mistake; and Hal, looking up, perceived that this was not Sir Valentine,
but a pale, watchful-looking man, with fiery eyes; while a voice,
strangely weakened, came from the bed:

"Thou'rt welcome, Harry."

"What!" cried Hal, striding to the bed. "Sir Valentine, goest thou to
bed so early?"

"Ay," replied Sir Valentine, motionless on his back, "and have been abed
these two days, with promise from my good physician here of getting up
some six days hence or so."

"Thou'lt not move for another week, at least, Sir Valentine," said the
physician, the gentleman whom Hal first addressed.

"'Tis a sword wound got in a quarrel, Harry," explained Sir Valentine,
feebly, and paused, out of breath, looking for a reply.

But Hal stood startled and speechless. Not move for a week, and the
state officer likely to arrive in an hour! "And in every possible manner
aid and hasten his departure from the country," her Majesty had said;
and Hal had taken her money, and by his promise, by her trust in him,
by every consideration that went to the making of a gentleman, a man of
honor, or an honest servant, stood bound to carry out her wish.

The errand was not to be so simple, after all.




CHAPTER V.

THE PLAYER PROVES HIMSELF A GENTLEMAN.

"Warrants and pursuivants! Away! warrants and pursuivants!"--_The Wise
Woman of Hogsdon._


Sir Valentine Fleetwood was a thin man, with regular features and sunken
cheeks, his usually sallow face now flushed with fever. His full round
beard was gray, but there were yet streaks of black in his flowing hair.

"Sir Valentine," Hal began, suppressing his excitement, "there is
private news I must make known to you instantly." And he cast a look at
the doctor, who frowned, and at Anthony, who remained motionless near
the door, with his lanthorn still in hand, as if expecting that he
should soon have to escort Hal out again.

"Sir Valentine is not in a condition to hear--" broke in the doctor, in
a voice of no loudness, but of much latent authority.

"But this is of the gravest import--" interrupted Hal, and was himself
interrupted by Sir Valentine, who had gathered breath for speech.

"Nay, Harry, it may wait. I am in no mind for business."

"But it requireth immediate action," said Hal, who would have told the
news itself, but that he desired first the absence of the doctor and the
steward.

"Then 'twill serve nothing to be told," said Sir Valentine, lapsing into
his former weakness, and with a slight shade of annoyance upon his face.
"As thou see'st, boy, I am in no state for action. A plague upon the
leg, I can't stir it half an inch."

"But--" cried Harry.

The physician rose, and Anthony, with an outraged look, took a
deprecatory step toward Harry.

"No more, young sir!" quoth the physician, imperatively. "Sir
Valentine's life--"

"But that is what I have come to speak of," replied Hal, in some
dudgeon. "Zounds, sir, do you know what you hinder? There are concerns
you wot not of!"

"Tut, Master Marryott," said Sir Valentine. "As for my life, 'tis best
in the doctor's hands; and for concerns, I have none now but my
recovery. Not for myself, the blessed Mary knoweth! But for others'
sakes, in another land. Oh, to think I should be drawn into an unwilling
quarrel, and get this plagued hurt! And mine opponent--hast heard yet
how Mr. Hazlehurst fares, Anthony?"

"No, your honor," said the Puritan; but he let his glance fall to the
floor as he spoke, and seemed to suffer an inward groan as of
self-reproach. Sir Valentine could not see him for the bed-curtains.

"Tis a lesson to shun disputes, boy," said Sir Valentine, to Hal. "Here
were my old neighbor's son, young Mr. Hazlehurst, and myself, bare
acquaintances, 'tis true, but wishing each other no harm. And two days
ago, meeting where the roads crossed, and a foolish question of right of
way occurring, he must sputter out hot words at me, and I must chide him
as becometh an elder man; and ere I think of consequences, his sword is
out, and I have much to do to defend myself! And the end is, each is
carried off by servants, with blood flowing; my wound in the groin, his
somewhere in the breast. I would fain know how he lies toward recovery!
You should have taken pains to inquire, Anthony."

"Sir Valentine," said the physician, "thou art talking too much. Master
Marryott, you see how things stand. If you bear Sir Valentine
friendship, you have no choice but to go away, sith you have paid your
respects. He would have it that you be admitted. Pray, abuse not his
courtesy."

"But, sir, that which I must tell him concerns--"

"I'll hear naught that concerns myself," said Sir Valentine, with the
childish stubbornness of illness. "Tell me of thine own self, Harry.
'Tis years since I saw thee last, and in that time I've had no word of
thee. Didst go to London, and stay there? My letter, it seems, availed
thee nothing. How livest thou? What is thy place in the world?"

Hal decided to throw the physician and Anthony off guard by coming at
his news indirectly. So he answered Sir Valentine:

"I am a stage player."

Sir Valentine opened eyes and mouth in amazement; he gasped and stared.

"A stage player!" he echoed, horrified. "Thy father's son a stage
player! A Marryott a stage player! Sir, sir, you have fallen low!
Blessed Mary, what are the times? A gentleman turn stage player!"

Old Anthony had drawn back from Hal, vastly scandalized, his eyes raised
heavenward as if for divine protection from contamination; and the
physician gazed, in a kind of passionless curiosity.

"A stage player," said Hal, firmly, having taken his resolution, "may
prove himself still a gentleman. He may have a gentleman's sense of old
friendship shown, and a gentleman's honesty to repay it, as I have when
I come to save thee from the privy council's men riding hither to arrest
thee for high treason! And a gentleman's authority, as I have when I bid
this doctor and this Anthony to aid thy escape, and betray or hinder it
not, on pain of deeper wounds than thine!" And Hal, having drawn his
sword, stood with his back to the doorway.

Sir Valentine himself was the first to speak; he did so with quiet
gravity:

"Art quite sure of this, Harry?"

"Quite, Sir Valentine. We stage players consort with possessors of state
secrets, now and then. The warrant for thy apprehension was signed this
day. A council's pursuivant was to leave London at three o'clock, with
men to assure thy seizure. I, bearing in mind my family's debt to thine,
and mine own to thee, started at two, to give thee warning. More than
that, I swear to save thee. This arrest, look you, means thy death; from
what I heard, I perceive thy doom is prearranged; thy trial is to be a
pretence."

"I can believe that!" said Sir Valentine, with a grim smile.

"'Tis not my fault that these two have been let into the secret," said
Hal, indicating the physician and Anthony.

"And it shall not be to Sir Valentine's disadvantage, sir, speaking for
myself," said the physician.

"His honor knows whether I may be trusted," said Anthony, swelling with
haughty consciousness of his fidelity, as if to outdo the physician,
toward whom his looks were always oblique and of a covert antipathy.

"I know ye are my friends," said Sir Valentine. "I could have spoken for
you. But what is to be done? 'Tis true I cannot move. Think it no whimsy
of the doctor's, Harry. Blessed Mary, send heaven to my help! Think not,
Harry, 'tis for myself I moan. Thou knowest not how my matters stand
abroad. There are those awaiting me in France, dependent on me--"

"And to France we must send you safe, Sir Valentine!" said Harry. "You
could not be supported on horseback, I suppose?"

The physician looked amazed at the very suggestion, and Sir Valentine
smiled gloomily and shook his head.

"Or in a coach, an one were to be had?" Hal went on.

"'Twould be the death of him in two miles," said the physician.
"Moreover, where is a coach to be got in time?"

"Is there no hiding-place near, to which you might be carried?" asked
Hal, of Sir Valentine, knowing how most Catholic houses were provided in
those days.

Sir Valentine exchanged looks with the physician and Anthony, then
glanced toward the wall of the chamber, and answered:

"There is a space 'twixt yon panelling and the outer woodwork of the
house. It hath air through hidden openings to the cracked plaster
without; and is close to the chimney, for warmth. In a hasty search it
would be passed over,--there is good proof of that. But this pursuivant,
not finding me, would sound every foot of wall in the house. He would,
eventually, detect the hollowness of the panelling there, and the
looseness of the boards that hide the entrance. Or, if he did not that,
he and his men would rouse the county, and occupy the house in
expectation of my secret return; they would learn of my quarrel and
wound, and would know I must be hid somewhere near. While they remained
in the house, searching the neighborhood with sheriff's and magistrate's
men, keeping watch on every one, how should I be supplied and cared for
in that hole? It would soon become, not my hiding-place, but my
grave,--for which 'tis truly of the right dimensions!"

"But if, not finding you in the first search, they should suppose you
gone elsewhere?" said Hal, for sheer need of offering some hope, however
wild.

"Why, they would still make the house the centre of their search, as I
said."

"But if they were made to believe you had fled afar?"

"They would soon learn of my wound. It hath been bruited about the
neighborhood. They would know it made far flight impossible."

"But can they learn how bad thy wound is? Might it not be a harmless
scratch?"

"It might, for all the neighborhood knoweth of it," put in Anthony; and
the physician nodded.

"Then, if they had reason to think you far fled?" pursued Hal.

"Why," replied Sir Valentine, "some of them would go to make far hunt;
others would wait for my possible return, and to search the house for
papers. And the constables and officers of the shire would be put on the
watch for me."

"Need the search for papers lead to the discovery of yon hiding-place?"

"No. The searchers would find papers in my study to reward a search,
though none to harm any but myself. The other gentlemen concerned are
beyond earthly harm."

"But," quoth Hal, the vaguest outlines of a plan beginning to take shape
before him, "were the pursuivant, on arriving at your gate, to be
checked by certain news that you had fled in a particular direction,
would he not hasten off forthwith on your track, with all his men? Would
he take time for present search or occupancy of your house, or demand
upon constable's or sheriff's men? And if your track were kept ever in
view before him, would he not continue upon it to the end? And suppose
some of his men were left posted in thy house. These would be few,
three or four at most, seeing that the main force were close upon thy
trail. These three or four would not look for thy return; they would
look for thy taking by their comrades first. They would keep no vigil,
and being without their leader,--who would head the pursuing
party,--they would rest content with small search for papers; they would
rather be industrious in searching thy wine-cellar and pantry. Thus you
could be covertly attended from this chamber, by nurse or doctor,
acquainted with the house. And when you were able to move, these men,
being small in force, might be overpowered; or, being careless, they
might be eluded. And thus you might pass out of the house by night, and
into a coach got ready by the doctor, and so to the sea; and the men in
thy house none the wiser, and those upon thy false track still chasing
farther away."

"Harry, Harry," said Sir Valentine, in a kindly but hopeless tone, "thou
speak'st dreams, boy!"

"Ne'ertheless," said Hal, "is't not as I say, an the false chase were
once contrived?"

"Why," put in the physician, "that is true enough. Send me away the
pursuivant and most of his men, and let those who stay think Sir
Valentine thus pursued, and I'll warrant the looking to Sir Valentine's
wants, and his removal in nine days or so. Nine days he will need, not
an hour less; and yet another day, to make sure; that is ten. But
should the pursuers on the false chase discover their mistake, and
return ere ten days be gone, all were lost. E'en suppose they could be
tricked by some misguidance at the gate, which is not conceivable,
they'd not go long on their vain hunt without tangible track to follow.
Why, Master Marryott, they'd come speeding back in two hours!"

"But if a man rode ahead, and left tangible track, by being seen and
noted in the taverns and highways? He need but keep up the chase, by not
being caught; the pursuivant may be trusted to pick up all traces left
of his travels. These messengers of the council are skilled in tracing
men, when there are men to leave traces."

"What wild prating is this?" cried Sir Valentine, somewhat impatiently.
"I know thou mean'st kindly, Harry, but thy plan is made of moonshine.
Let a man, or a hundred men, ride forth and leave traces, what shall
make these officers think the man is I?"

"They shall see him leave thy gate in flight when they come up. And, as
for his leading them a chase, he will be on one of thy horses, an there
be time to make one ready, otherwise on mine,--in either case, on a
fresher horse than theirs. So he shall outride them at the first dash,
and then, one way and another, lead them farther and farther, day after
day."

"But, man, man! Wilder and wilder!" exclaimed Sir Valentine, as if he
thought himself trifled with. "Know you not their leader will be one
that is well acquainted with my face?"

"So much the better," cried Hal; "for then he will take oath it is you
he sees departing!"

"I he sees departing?" echoed Sir Valentine, and began to look at Hal
apprehensively, as if in suspicion of madness, a suspicion in which the
physician and Anthony seemed to join. "I departing, when I am in yon
narrow hole between timbers? I departing, when I am hurt beyond power of
motion, as their leader will doubtless learn at the village ale-house,
on inquiring if I be at home."

"Yes, sir," said Hal, "he shall think it is you, and the more so if he
have heard of your wound. For, in the lanthorn's light, as he comes in
seeing distance, he shall perceive that you sit your horse as a lame man
doth. And that thy head is stiffly perched, thy shoulders drawn back, in
the manner peculiar to them. And that thy left elbow is thrust out as is
its wont. And that thy hat, as usual, shades thy brow thus. But more
than all else, sir, that thy face is of little breadth, thy beard gray
and round, as they have been these many years."

And Hal, having realized in attitude each previous point in his
description, took from his pocket the false beard that had lain there
since the first performance of "Hamlet," and tying it on his face, which
he had thinned by drawing in his cheeks, stood transformed into the
living semblance of Sir Valentine Fleetwood.




CHAPTER VI.

AND THE GENTLEMAN PROVES HIMSELF A PLAYER.

"Let the world think me a bad counterfeit, if I cannot give him the slip
at an instant."--_Every Man in His Humor._


There was a moment's silence in the chamber. Then--

"Play-acting!" muttered Anthony, with a dark frown, followed by an
upturning of the eyes.

"Thou'lt pass, my son!" said the physician, his eyes alight with
approval and new-found hope. "Truly, I think he will, Sir
Valentine,--with a touch of the scissors to shape his beard more like!"
And he took up from the table a pair of scissors, doubtless used in
cutting bandages for the wounded man, and striding toward Master
Marryott, applied them with careful dexterity. "Behold," said he, when
he had finished. "Thou'lt surely fool them in the lanthorn's light and
the haste. By close work thou mightst truly lead them off in the night,
but in daylight the falseness of thy beard may easily be seen, for the
strings 'tis tied withal."

"But the officers shall not see my face after the starting. I'll not
stay near enough to them for that. 'Tis by word of innkeepers and
townspeople and country-folk, of my passage through the country, that I
shall be traced. And mark: save to officers that keep note of Catholics,
Sir Valentine is scarce known ten miles hence, so much hath he lived
abroad. And I'm not known out of London and Oxfordshire. So who's to set
the pursuers right?"

"But what then?" said the physician. "Those same innkeepers and such can
but report the passage of a man with a false beard, at best. More like,
they will cause thy detention as a questionable person, till the
council's men come up to thee. Either way, the pursuivant will see the
trick, and speed hotfoot back to this house."

"Why, look you," said Hal, "early in the morning I will hastily enter
some inn, my face muffled as for cold. There, in a private chamber, I
will take off the beard, and come forth as if I had but shaved. And so
report will remain of me, that I came bearded and departed shaven; and
the men in pursuit will take this very shaving as a means of disguise.
They'll be the more convinced I'm the man."

"Ay, but there you risk their losing trace of you; for the absence of
the beard will show your youth, and make you at odds with their
description of you."

"Why, the loss of a beard will sometimes give an elder man a look of
youth. And the same companion shall ride with me,--he that now keeps
watch without. By the description of him as my attendant, 'twill be
known I am the gentleman that rode from Fleetwood house. And to make my
trace the more certain, let a second accompany me,--one of Sir
Valentine's servants that live here constantly and are better known than
their master is. And he shall also guide me on the roads hereabouts, in
my first dash from the gates; for, look you, there will be fleet riding
for an hour or two!"

"Thou hearest, Sir Valentine," said the physician, turning to the
wounded gentleman.

"Ay," replied the knight, "and being weak of breath, have waited for a
breach to put my word in. 'Tis all madness, this ye talk of! E'en were't
possible. I should let no man risk life for me as this young gentleman
offereth. Why, lad, they'd catch thee, of a surety--"

"I make question of that, Sir Valentine," quoth Hal.

"Some time or other, they would," said the knight. "And thou knowest the
penalty of aiding the escape of one accused of treason! The act itself
is treason."

"And what if I have already incurred penalties as grievous, on mine own
account? And what if I have some running away to do, for myself? May not
one flight suffice for both? While I lead these men on a false chase
from thee, I but put distance 'twixt myself and danger," said Hal, with
less regard for truth than for leading Sir Valentine into his plans.

"What, Harry?" cried Sir Valentine. "Is it true? But still, thou'rt yet
in good way to make thine own escape. To wait for these officers, and to
keep them at thy tail, will doubly imperil thee. Thou shalt not multiply
thine own danger for me,--by Mary, thou shalt not!"

"But I mean not to be caught, Sir Valentine. Have I no skill, no
hardihood? Shall youth serve nothing, and strong arms, and hard legs? I
will elude them, I swear! But first I will keep them on my tail time
enough for thy removal. Ten days, the doctor said. An I lead off these
fellows a five days' ride from Fleetwood house, straight north toward
Scotland, and then drop them, 'twill take five days for them to ride
back. And there, of but five days' work on my part, come the ten days'
delay thou needest!"

"But thou canst not do it, Harry," persisted Sir Valentine, while the
physician silently paced the floor in thought, and the Puritan looked on
with outward indifference. "Why, bethink you! To escape thy pursuers,
and yet not to let them lose trace of thee; to outride them ever, yet
never ride too far away from them; to elude them, yet not to drop them;
this for five days, and then to break off the track and leave them
baffled, at the last! Tis impossible!"

"'Tis a glorious kind of sport, Sir Valentine!" cried Hal, his eyes
aglow. "'Tis a game worth playing! Nay, 'tis a stage play, wherein I
undertake to act the part of Sir Valentine Fleetwood in flight and
disguise! Ods-body, I shall prove I am a player! Thou shalt not refuse,
Sir Valentine! Do as thou wilt, I am for the gate, and when the officers
come up, the devil seize me an I do not lead them off again!"

"Sir Valentine doth not refuse," cried the physician, who had manifestly
made up his mind. "Thou need'st fresh horses? Anthony shall fetch them
to the gate. And one of Sir Valentine's known servants, to show the road
and leave the better trace? Anthony shall go. Continual residence here,
in his master's absence, hath made him as well known for Sir Valentine's
man as Sir Valentine is little known for Anthony's master. On your way
to the stable. Anthony, send Mary hither, and John. They shall help me
house Sir Valentine yonder, with store of food and drink. Straight north
toward Scotland, sayest thou, Master Marryott? The right road for thy
wild-goose chase. We shall do our part, my son. Only gain us the ten
days."

And the physician strode to the side of the chamber, put aside some
faded hangings, and began to loosen a section of the panelling.

Anthony, frowning haughtily at the physician's giving him orders, looked
inquiringly at Sir Valentine.

"But, my good father," began the knight, addressing the physician. Hal
shot a glance of discovery at the latter. My father! This "doctor" was a
doctor of other than the body, then! Hal had wondered to see a physician
of such mien and manner in this country place, and had thought he might
have been summoned from London. But now all was clear. He was a popish
priest, disguised in ordinary habit, to escape the severity of the
Elizabethan statutes; though, doubtless, he knew enough of surgery and
medicine for the treatment of Sir Valentine's wound.

"There is no time for talk, my son," said this doctor, interrupting Sir
Valentine. "Remember those in France. And let Anthony do as I said."

"Thou hast heard, Anthony," said the knight, compliantly, after a
moment's reflection. "Lead out the horses--"

"Three, Sir Valentine," put in Hal, to whom time was beginning to appear
extremely precious, "as Anthony is to go with us. I shall leave my two
for thy use."

"And take money, Anthony," went on Sir Valentine, while the priest
continued to open the way to the secret closet.

"I have money, sir," said Hal.

"But Anthony shall take some,--the half of what is in the chest,
Anthony. The rest will serve me to France, an this plan indeed be not
madness."

"You have sure ways of going to France, I doubt not," said Hal to Sir
Valentine.

"Ay," said the knight, with a smiling side glance at the busy priest,
"we have made that voyage when ports were e'en closer watched than now.
And hear this, Anthony, before you go,--Anthony will show thee, Harry,
how to make for France on thine own account, if indeed thou dost ride
free of these messengers. And he will tell thee where in Paris I am to
be found. When we meet there,--the saints intercede that we may!--I
shall have a way of thanking thee, perchance. Go, Anthony!"

The servant left the room, with a glumness belonging rather to a general
habit of surly disapproval than to any particular objection to the task
before him.

"This house and land," Sir Valentine went on, "will be confiscate, of
course, and myself outlawed. But thou see'st how this estate hath
fallen, Harry. I keep here but two servants besides Anthony, where once
I kept twenty. But in all these years I have built up some means of
living, across the narrow seas; and thou shalt not want in France.
Harry!"

"Think not of me, but of thyself, Sir Valentine. I'd best leave thee
now, and hasten Anthony with the horses. I can find him by his
lanthorn's light. We have lost much time."

But Sir Valentine would embrace him ere he left, as well as a man so
wounded might; and the knight, touched with gratitude, wept as the youth
bent over him. Hal then turned to take swift leave of the priest, who
had now caused a dark hole to gape in the wooden panelling. The latter,
at this, took up a cloak from a chair, detached Hal's own shorter cloak,
and put the other over the youth's shoulders, saying:

"'Tis Sir Valentine's own cloak, and more befitting the part thou hast
to play, Master Actor! Take my blessing, and the saints watch over
thee!"

With no more ado, Hal hastened from the room, and down to the hall,
where Anthony, bearing the lanthorn, was ordering the two other servants
to their master's chamber. Hal held his cloak over his face till they
were gone up the stairs; then he bade Anthony show him quickly to the
stables, adding:

"As for the money, if you must obey orders, you may get it while I am
saddling the horses."

The steward gave a grunt, and led the way out to the stables, where he
indicated the three best horses. He then returned to the house, leaving
the lanthorn; but presently reappeared, in time to help Hal with the
horses, and to receive at the same time the player's explicit directions
for the conduct of matters on the arrival of the officers.

The two men then led the horses to the front gate, where Anthony tied a
pair of them, that he might take Hal's London horse to the stable.
Master Marryott mounted and rode toward the village to acquaint Captain
Bottle with what was to be done. On perceiving Kit's stalwart figure,
black against the dim night, Hal called out to him to follow back to the
mansion. While the two were covering the distance thereto, Hal briefly
put the soldier in possession of what it was needful for the latter to
know. Anthony had now returned from the stable, and the lanthorn
revealed Hal's transformation, which the captain viewed with critical
approval while transferring himself from his tired horse to one of the
fresh ones.

"And the Puritan rides with us?" queried Bottle, while Anthony was gone
with the second horse to the stable. "Sad company, sad company! An the
dull rogue sermon me upon the sins of the flesh, I'll knock in his teeth
to shut up his throat withal! Well, well! This mixing in matters of
state maketh strange bedfellows. I mind me once--lend ear. Hal! Hoofs
yonder, or I'm an owl else!"

Hal listened. Yes, horses were crossing the wooden bridge of the brook
on the Londonward side of the village.

"Should these be the men?" whispered Hal in a low voice. "They come
slowly."

"Who else should be on the road at this hour?" replied Kit. "They know
not any reason for haste."

"A red murrain on that Puritan, then!" said Hal. "What holds him so long
at the stable? All is lost, without his lanthorn. I'll ride in and fetch
him."

"Nay, they must use time enough in coming hither. Hark! They have halted
in the village. Mayhap they must needs ask the way to Fleetwood house."

"'Tis well, then. They will learn of Sir Valentine's hurt."

There was then a very trying time of silence and waiting, during which
Hal's heart beat somewhat as it had beaten in the tiring-room before the
performance of "Hamlet."

"Hear them again," he said at last, through his teeth. "And that rascal
Puritan--"

"Save thy breath! Here he comes."

Anthony indeed now appeared with the light, crossing the yard with
longer strides than he had previously taken; he, too, had heard the
approaching horses.

"Into thy saddle, dog!" muttered Hal. "And a plague on thee for thy
slowness! Now do as I bid, or I'll give thee a bellyful of steel!"

The steward having got on horseback, Hal led the way back into the yard.
The three then wheeled about, and stood just within the now wide-open
gate. Anthony at Hal's right and bearing the lanthorn in his left hand,
Kit at Hal's left. Hal measured with his ears the constantly decreasing
distance of the hoof-beats on the hard road, as they advanced at a
steady walking pace. Through the silence came the sound of a far-off
clock striking eight, and then of the approaching horsemen talking to
one another in low tones.

At last Hal said, "Now!" and rode forth into the road, which was here of
exceptional width. The three, riding abreast, turned toward London, as
if intending to ride southward. Had they continued, they would soon have
met the approaching horsemen face to face. But suddenly Hal, as if he
now for the first time discovered the presence of newcomers, stopped
short, as did also his two attendants. Anthony, in pretence of enabling
the make-believe Sir Valentine to perceive who the horsemen were, held
the lanthorn up, a little to the right and rear of Hal's body, so that
it revealed his attitude and left his face in shadow. Leaning forward,
as in pain, yet with head stiffly set, shoulders forced back, hat low on
brow, left elbow thrust out, and beard well outlined against the light,
Hal peered anxiously into the gloom. Out of that gloom there came, after
a startled exclamation and a hush of low voices, the clear greeting:

"Give you good even, Sir Valentine!"

Hal uttered a swift order to his men. Anthony instantly wheeled around,
to take the lead, and rode northward. Hal did likewise, and was
immediately followed by Captain Bottle. As soon as Hal made sure that
Kit had turned, he called to the steward ahead to make speed; and a
moment later the three were galloping over the frozen road at the
devil's gait.

"Halt! In the queen's name!" rang out of the darkness behind, in the
voice that had been heard before.

"Go to hell, Roger Barnet!" shouted back Kit Bottle, to Hal's
astonishment.

"You know him?" queried Hal, as the horses flew onward.

"Yes, and a taker of traitors he is, sure enough!" growled Kit through
the night. "A very hell-hound, at a man's heels! Hear him cursing, back
yonder, for his pistol will not go off! They have whipped up; the whole
pack is on the scent!"

"Good!" cried Hal. "Sir Valentine and the priest will have plain
sailing. The chase is begun, old Kit! Five days of this, and the hounds
must neither lose nor catch us! Ods-body, the Puritan's lanthorn is out!
I hope he knows the road in the dark!"




CHAPTER VII.

MISTRESS ANNE HAZLEHURST.

                "I have got the start;
          But ere the goal, 'twill ask both brain and art."
                                              --_The English Traveller._


Manifestly the Puritan knew the road, and manifestly it was known to the
horses, also; for without decrease of swiftness the few black objects at
the roadside--indistinct blurs against the less black stretches of
night-sky--seemed to race back toward the men in pursuit. Soon the
riders had a wood at their right, a park at their left. Then there was
perforce a slowing up, for a hill had to be ascended. But by this time
the enemy was left almost out of ear-shot. Hal, knowing his party to be
the more freshly mounted, took heed to make no further gain at present.
While in the vicinity of Fleetwood house, the chase must be so close
that the officers would not for a moment drop it to consider some other
course of action. As long as they were at his heels, and saw imminent
possibility of taking him, it was not probable that they would separate
for the purpose of searching Sir Valentine's house, or of causing
proclamation to be sent broadcast by which port wardens might be put on
guard, or of taking time to seek the aid of shire officers, justices,
and constables. It was not for himself that Hal had most to fear a hue
and cry of the country, for by keeping ahead of the officers by whom
that hue and cry must be evoked, he should keep ahead of the hue and cry
itself; but such a raising of the country would direct to Fleetwood
house an attention which might hinder Sir Valentine's eventual removal.
Once the pursuers were drawn into another county, Hal might gain over
them sufficient time for his own rest and refreshment, and for his
necessary changes of horse. When committed to the hunt by several hours'
hard riding, the officers, for their own reputation, would be less
likely to abandon it for a return to Fleetwood house; and though, as the
hunt should develop into a long and toilsome business, they would surely
take time to enlist local authorities in it, those authorities would not
be of Hertfordshire, and their eyes would be turned toward Hal himself,
not toward Fleetwood house.

"Tell me more of this Barnet," said Hal to Captain Bottle, as the three
fugitives rode up a second hill. The sound of the pursuers, galloping
across the level stretch between the two heights, came with faint
distinctness to the ears of the pursued, in intervals of the noise made
by their own horses,--noise of breathing, snorting, treading the rough
earth, and clashing against the loose stones that lay in the ditch-like
road.

"Why, he is a chaser of men by choice," answered Kit. "I knew him years
agone, in Sir Francis Walsingham's day. Beshrew me if he is ever happy
without a warrant in his pouch. I'm a bottle-ale rascal an he hath not
carried the signature of the secretary of state over more miles than any
other man! A silent, unsocial rogue! When I knew him first, he was one
of Walsingham's men; and so was I, i' faith! We chased down some of the
Babington conspirators together,--that was fifteen years ago. For, look
you, this raising of the country against a traitor is well enough, when
he is a gentleman of note, that openly gathers his followers and
fortifies his house and has not to be hunted out like a hare. But when
traitors are subtle fellows that flee and disguise themselves, these
loutish constables' knaves, that watch for hunted men in front of
ale-houses, are sad servants of the state, God wot!--and I have seen
with these eyes a letter to that effect, from Lord Burleigh to Sir
Francis, when this same Barnet and I were a-hunting the Babington
rascals."[25]

"Then this Barnet is like to keep on our track?" interrogated Hal.

"Yea, that he is! 'Tis meat and drink to the rogue, this man-hunting!
He takes a pride in it, and used to boast he had never yet lost his
game. And never did he, to my knowledge, but once, and that was my
doing, which was the cause of our falling out. When Sir Francis
Walsingham died, we remained in service as pursuivants--to attend the
orders of the council and the high commission. That was a fat trade!
Great takings, rare purse-filling! Old Kit had no need of playing
coney-catcher in those days! We would be sent to bring people up to
London, to prison, and 'twas our right to charge them what we pleased
for service and accommodation; and when they could not pay, it went hard
with them. Well, Roger Barnet and I disagreed once about dividing the
money we meant to squeeze out of a Gloucestershire gentleman, that some
lord his neighbor had got a council's order against, for having troubled
his lordship with a lawful suit in the courts. Rather than take the
worse of it from Roger Barnet, I got up when he was asleep, at the inn
we were staying overnight, and set the gentleman free. Roger would have
killed me the next day, had he been as good a swordsman as he is a
man-hunter. But, as it was, he had to be content with my losing so fat a
service. For he was in favor with Mr. Beal, the clerk of the council,
and might have made things hard for me but that I took forthwith to the
wars."

"God look to it he may not have chance of making things hard for thee in
this business!" said Hal.

"Why, one thing is sure," replied Kit, "he will stick to our heels the
longer for my being of the party. 'Twould warm his heart to pay off old
scores. He'll perchance think 'twas I that got word of Sir Valentine's
danger and brought warning. And, certes, he finds me aiding an accused
traitor, which brings me, too, under the treason statutes. 'Twould be a
sweet morsel to Roger Barnet to carry me back prisoner to London! An thy
plan be to keep Roger on our track, 'tis well I made myself known by
word of mouth, as I did. Though, for that matter, I say it again, Roger
is not the dog to quit any scent, let him once lay his nose to the
earth."

Ahead rode the Puritan, in a silence as of sullenness, his figure more
clearly drawn against the night as Hal's eyes were the better accustomed
to the darkness. Hal now spoke so that both Anthony and Kit might hear,
saying:

"My men, ye are to plant it in your minds that I am Sir Valentine
Fleetwood, none other; but ye will seem to wish to hide from people that
I am he. Hence ye will call me by some other name, it matters not what;
and the better 'twill be an ye blunder in that name, and disagree in it
from time to time. The more then will it appear that I, Sir Valentine,
am trying to pass myself off as another. But sometimes seem to forget,
and call me Sir Valentine, and then hastily correct yourselves as if ye
had spoke incautiously."

"The lie be on your own head, though my mouth be forced to speak it,"
replied Anthony Underhill, dismally.

"Willingly," said Hal; and Kit Bottle put in:

"An the weight be too heavy on thy head, Master Marryott, let old Kit
bear some of it. Ods-body, some folk be overfearful of damnation!"

Anthony muttered something about scoffers, and rode on without further
speech. So they traversed a hamlet, then a plain, then more hills and
another sleeping village. Varying their pace as the exigencies of the
road required, they were imitated in this--as they could hear--by
Barnet's party. The narrowness of the highway, which hereabouts ran for
a good distance between lines of wooden fence, compelled them to ride in
single file. They had been on the road an hour, perhaps, and made about
five miles, so that they were probably a mile from Stevenage, when
Anthony called back to Hal:

"There be riders in front, sir, coming toward us."

"So my ears tell me," said Hal, after a moment's listening. "Who the
devil can be abroad at this hour? I hope we suffer no delay in passing
them."

Barnet's men were now a half mile behind, evidently nursing the powers
of their horses for a timely dash. A stoppage of any kind might nip
Hal's fine project in the bud. Hence it was with anxiety that he
strained his eyes forward. The newcomers were approaching at a fast
walk. One of them, the foremost, was carrying a light. As they drew
nearer, riding one behind another, they took a side of the road, the
more speedily to pass. But the leader, as he came opposite Anthony
Underhill, and saw the Puritan's face in the feeble light, instantly
pulled up, and called out to one behind in a kind of surprise:

"Here's Sir Valentine's steward, Anthony Underhill!"

"Give ye good even, Dickon, and let us pass," said Anthony, sourly; for
the other had quickly turned his horse crosswise so as to block most of
the narrow road.

"Is that thy master I see yonder?" he asked, holding his light toward
Hal, who had promptly ridden up abreast of Anthony.

"What is that to you, fellow?" cried Hal.

"'Tis something to me!" called out a voice behind the fellow,--a voice
that startled Hal, for it was a woman's. "Are you Sir Valentine?"

"Who wishes to know?" inquired Hal, putting some courtesy into the
speech.

"I do--Anne Hazlehurst!" was the quick answer. And the light-bearer
having made room for her, she rode forward.

Hazlehurst! Where, Hal asked himself, had he recently heard that name?

"Well, are you Sir Valentine?" she demanded, impatiently.

"I do not deny it," said Hal.

"Then here's for you,--slayer of my brother!" she cried, and struck him
full in the face with the flat of a sword she had held beneath her
cloak. In doing this she thrust her hooded head more into the lanthorn's
light, and Hal recalled two things at the same instant,--the name
Hazlehurst as that of the gentleman with whom Sir Valentine had fought,
and the woman's face as that with which he, Master Marryott, had fallen
in love at the theatre during the play of "Hamlet."




CHAPTER VIII.

"A DEVIL OF A WOMAN."

"From all such devils, good Lord, deliver us!"--_The Taming of the
Shrew._


"And now, my men, upon him!" cried Mistress Hazlehurst, backing to make
room in which her followers might obey.

These followers tried to push forward; the horses crowded one another,
and there ensued much huddling and confusion. But the lantern-bearer,
holding his light and his bridle in one hand, caught Mr. Marryott's
bridle with the other. Hal struck this hand down with one of his
pistols, which were not prepared for firing. He then drew his sword,
with a gesture that threw hesitation into the ranks of his opposers.

"Madam," he cried, in no very gentle tone, "may I know what is your
purpose in this?"

"'Tis to prevent your flight," she called back, promptly. "The officers
of justice are slow; I shall see that you forestall them not."

For a moment Hal, thinking only of the officers behind him, wondered if
she could have heard of the council's intention, and whether it was to
the royal messengers that she alluded.

"What have officers of justice to do with me?" he asked.

"To call you to account for the killing of my brother!"

Sir Valentine's fight, in which wounds had been given on both sides,
again recurred to Hal's mind.

"Your brother is dead, then?" he inquired.

"I am but now from his funeral!" was her answer.

In that case, Hal deduced, her brother must have died two days before,
that is to say, on the very day of the fight. The news must have come
belated to the sister, for she had been at the performance of "Hamlet,"
yesterday. And here was explanation of her departure from the theatre in
the midst of the play. The summons to her dead brother's side had
followed her to the playhouse, and there overtaken her. Afterward, Hal
found these inferences to be correct.

For a second or two of mutual inaction, he marvelled at the strange ways
of circumstance which had brought this woman, whom he had yesterday
admired in the crowded London playhouse, to confront him in such odd
relations on this lonely, night-hidden road in Hertfordshire. But a
sound that a turn of the wind brought--the sound of Roger Barnet's men
riding nearer--sharpened him to the necessity of immediate action
against this sudden hindrance. Yet he felt loath to go from this woman.
Go he must, however, though even at the possible cost of violence to her
people.

The Puritan retained his place at Marryott's side. Kit Bottle was close
behind, and with horse already half turned so that he might face
Barnet's men should they come up too soon; he had drawn his sword, and
was quietly making ready his pistols.

"Madam," said Hal, decisively, "I did not kill your brother. Now, by
your favor, I will pass, for I am in some haste."

"What!" she cried. "Did you lie just now, when you said you were Sir
Valentine Fleetwood?"

Now, Hal might tell her that he was not Sir Valentine; but, doubtless,
she would not believe him; and thus the situation would not be changed.
And, on the other hand, if she should believe him, so much the
worse,--she would then bend her energies toward the hindrance of the
real Sir Valentine; would ride on toward Fleetwood house, be met and
questioned by Roger Barnet, and set him right, or at least cause him to
send a party back to Fleetwood house to investigate. So Hal's purpose
would be speedily frustrated. His only course was to let her think him
really the man he was impersonating; indeed that course would make but
another step in the continued deception of Roger Barnet, and Hal was
bound to take such steps--not avoid them--for the next five days.

"Mistress Hazlehurst," replied Hal, taking a kind of furtive joy in
using her name upon his lips for the first time, "I do not deny that I
am Sir Valentine Fleetwood; but I did not kill your brother. I wish you
heaven's blessing and a good night, for I am going on!" With that he
started his horse forward.

"Take him!" she shouted to her men. "Ye shall pay for it an he escape!"

The threat had effect. The attendants crowded upon Hal, some with swords
drawn, some with clubs upraised; so that his horse, after a few steps,
reared wildly upon its haunches, and sought a way out of the press.

"Back, dogs!" commanded Marryott, striking right and left with sword and
pistol. There were cries of pain from men and horses; the men wielded
their weapons as best they could; but a way was somehow opened. Mistress
Hazlehurst herself was forced against the fence at the roadside, one of
her followers--a slender, agile youth--skilfully interposing his horse
and body between her and the crush. She would have pressed into the
midst of the blows and of the rearing beasts, had not this servant
restrained her horse by means which she, in her excitement, did not
perceive. But she continued calling out orders, in a loud, wrathful
voice.

As Hal opened way, Anthony and Bottle followed close, preventing the
enemy from closing in upon his rear. The Puritan used a short sword with
a business-like deliberation and care, and with no word or other vocal
sign than a kind of solemnly approbative grunt as he thrust. Bottle, who
rode last, handled his long rapier with great swiftness and potency, in
all directions, swearing all the while; and finally let off his two
pistols, one after the other, at two men who hung with persistence upon
Hal's flanks, while Hal was forcing the last opposition in front. One of
these two fell wounded or dead, the other was thrown by his maddened
horse; and finally the three fugitives were free of the mass of men and
beasts that had barred the way. One of the horses was clattering down
the road ahead, without a rider. Hal informed himself by a single glance
that Anthony and Kit were free and able, and then, with an "On we go!"
he spurred after the riderless horse toward Stevenage.

"After him, you knaves!" screamed Mistress Hazlehurst, in a transport of
baffled rage; but her servants, some unhorsed, some with broken heads or
pierced bodies, one with a pistol wound in his side, and the rest
endeavoring to get the horses under control, were quite heedless of her
cries.

"A sad plight to leave a lady in!" said Hal, who had heard her futile
order. He and his two men were now riding at a gallop, to regain lost
advantage.

"A devil of a woman!" quoth Captain Bottle, in a tone of mere comment,
void of any feeling save, perhaps, a little admiration.

"Why did she not know me, either as Sir Valentine, or as not being Sir
Valentine?" asked Hal, calling ahead to Anthony, who had resumed his
place in front.

"She hath dwelt most time in London with a city kinswoman," was the
answer, "and Sir Valentine hath lived usually in France since she was
born."

"'Tis well Master Barnet knew Sir Valentine better, or knew him well
enough to take me for him in my disguise," said Hal.

"Trust Roger Barnet to know every papist in the kingdom," called out Kit
Bottle, "and to know every one else that's like to give occasion for his
services. It is a pride of his to know the English papists whereever
they be. Roger is often on the Continent, look you. He is the privy
council's longest finger!"

"Tell me of this Mistress Hazlehurst," said Hal to the Puritan, to whose
side he now rode up. "Is't true she is the sister of the gentleman Sir
Valentine fought?"

"His only sister," returned Anthony. "His only close kin. She is now
heiress to the Hazlehurst estate, and just old enough to be free of
wardship."

"A strong love she must have borne her brother, to fly straight from his
funeral to see him avenged!"

"Nay, I know not any great love betwixt 'em. They could not live in the
same house, or in the same county, for their wrangles--being both of an
ungodly violence. 'Twas her brother's unrighteous proneness to anger
that forced the brawl on Sir Valentine. 'Twas that heathenish
quarrelsomeness, some say, that kept Mr. Hazlehurst a bachelor. 'Tis a
wonder the evil spirit of wrath in him brought him not sooner to his
death. He fought many duels,--not hereabouts, where men were careful
against provoking him, but in France, where he lived much. 'Twas there,
indeed, that he and Sir Valentine best knew each other."

"And yet this sister must have loved him. Women are not commonly so
active toward punishing a brother's slayer," insisted Hal.

"Why," replied Anthony, "methinks this woman is a hothead that must
needs do with her own hands what, if she were another woman, she would
only wish done. 'Tis a pride of family that moveth her to look to the
avenging of her brother's death. A blow at him she conceiveth to be a
blow at herself, the two being of same name and blood. This sister and
brother have ever been more quick, one to resent an affront against the
other from a third person, than they have been slow to affront each
other. I am not wont to speak in the language of the lost, or to apply
the name of the arch-enemy to them that bear God's image; but, indeed,
as far as a headstrong will and violent ways are diabolical, yon profane
man spoke aptly when he named Mistress Anne a devil of a woman!"

"All's one for that," said Hal, curtly. "But, certes, as far as a
matchless face and a voice of music are angelical, I speak as aptly when
I name this Mistress Anne an angel of a woman! It went against me to
leave her in the road thus, in a huddle of bleeding servants and runaway
horses."

"Tis a huddle that will block the way for Roger Barnet a while," put in
Captain Bottle.

"Doubtless he and his men have ridden up to her by now," replied
Marryott. "I'd fain see what is occurring betwixt them." Then lapsing
into silence. Hal and his two attendants rode on, passing through
slumbering Stevenage, and continuing uninterruptedly northward.

Barnet's party had indeed come up to Mistress Hazlehurst's, and the
scene now occurring between them was one destined to have a strange
conclusion.

Anne's followers,--raw serving men without the skill or decision to have
used rightly their numerical superiority over the three fugitives,--all
were more or less hurt, except two,--the slight one who had personally
shielded her, and the lantern-bearer, who had been taken out of the
fray by the intractability of his horse. Not only was her escort useless
for any immediate pursuit of the supposed Sir Valentine, but the
condition of its members required of her, as their mistress and leader,
an instant looking to. The necessity of this forbade her own mad impulse
to ride unaided after the man who had escaped her, and whom she was the
more passionately enraged against because of his victory over her and of
his treatment of her servants. Nothing could have been more vexatious
than the situation into which she had been brought; and she was bitterly
chafing at her defeat, while forcing herself to consider steps for the
proper care of her injured servants, when Barnet's troop came clattering
up the road.

Mistress Hazlehurst's horses, except the runaway, had now been got under
command; some of her men, merely bruised in body or head, stood holding
them; others, worse hurt, lay groaning at the roadside, whither she had
ordered their comrades to drag them. Anne herself sat her horse in the
middle of the road, the little fellow, still mounted, at her left hand.
Such was the group that caused Barnet and his men to pull up their
horses to an abrupt halt. Peering forward, with eyes now habituated to
the darkness, the royal pursuivant swiftly inspected the figures before
him, perceived that Sir Valentine and his two attendants were not of
them, wondered what a woman was doing at the head of such a party,
dismissed that question as none of his business, and called out:

"Madam, a gentleman hath passed you, with two men. Did he keep the road
to Stevenage, or turn out yonder?"

"Sir Valentine Fleetwood, mean you?" asked Anne, with sudden eagerness.

"The same. Way to pass, please you. And answer."

Roger Barnet was a man of middle height; bodily, of a good thickness and
great solidity; a man with a bold, square face, a frown, cold eyes, a
short black beard; a keeper of his own counsel, a man of the fewest
possible words, and those gruffly spoken. Anne, because her mind was
working upon other matter, took no offence at his sharp, discourteous,
mandatory style of addressing her. Without heeding his demand for way,
she said:

"Sir Valentine hath indeed passed! See how he dealt with my servants
when I tried to stay him! Are you magistrate's men?"

"I am a messenger of the queen," said Barnet, deigning an answer
because, on looking more closely at her horses, a certain idea had come
to him.

"In pursuit of Sir Valentine?" she asked.

"With a warrant for his apprehension," was the reply.

"What! For my brother's death? Hath her Majesty heard--"

"For high treason; and if these be your horses, in the queen's name--"

But Mistress Hazlehurst cut short his speech, in turn.

"High treason!" she cried, with jubilation; and this thought flashed
through her mind: that if taken for high treason, her enemy, a Catholic
of long residence in France, was a doomed man; whereas a judicial
investigation of his quarrel with her brother might absolve Sir
Valentine from guilt or blame. True, the state's revenge for an offence
against itself would not, as such, be her revenge for an offence against
her family, and would not in itself afford her the triumph she craved;
but Sir Valentine was in a way to escape the State's revenge; she might
be an instrument to effect his capture; in being that, she would find
her own revenge. She could then truly say to her enemy, "But for me you
might be free; of my work, done in retaliation for killing my brother,
shall come your death; and so our blood, as much as the crown, is
avenged." All this, never expressed in detail, but conceived in entirety
during the time of a breath, was in her mind as she went on:

"God's light, he shall be caught, then! He went toward Stevenage. I will
ride with you!"

"Nay, madam, there are enough of us. But your horses are fresher than
ours. I take some of yours, in the queen's name, and leave mine in your
charge." And he forthwith dismounted, ordering his men to do likewise.
But ere he made another movement, his hand happening to seek his pouch,
he uttered an oath, and exclaimed:

"The queen's letters! There's delay! They must be delivered to-night.
Madam, know you where Sir William Crashaw's house is? And Mr. Richard
Brewby's?"

"Both are down the first road to the right."

"Then down the first road to the right I must go, and let Sir Valentine
Fleetwood gain time while I am about it. Which is your best horse,
mistress? And one of your men shall guide me to those gentlemen's
houses." And, resigning his horse to a follower, he strode into the
midst of the Hazlehurst group.

"But why lose this time, sir?" said Anne. "Let my man himself bear these
letters."

"When I am charged with letters," replied Roger Barnet, "they pass not
from me save into the hands for which they are intended. I shall carry
these letters, and catch this traitor. By your leave, I take this
horse--and this--and this. Get off, fellow! Hudsdon, bring my saddle,
and saddle me this beast. Change horses, the rest of you."

"But will you not send men after this traitor, while you bear the
letters?" queried Anne, making no protest against the pressing of her
horses into the queen's service,--a procedure in which no attempt was
made to include the horse she herself was on.

Barnet gave a grunt of laughter, to which he added the words, "My men go
with me!" Perhaps he dared not trust his men out of his sight, perhaps
he wished no one but himself to have the credit of taking the fugitive,
perhaps he needed the protection of his complete force against possible
attack.

"But, man," cried Anne, sharply, "you will lose track of Sir Valentine!
You will take two hours, carrying those letters!"

"Why, mistress," replied Barnet, as the change of horses from one party
to the other went rapidly on, "will not people in farmhouses and
villages hear his three horses pass?" Though he assumed a voice of
confidence, there was yet in it a tone betraying that he shared her
fears.

"He ought to be followed while he is yet scarce out of hearing," said
Anne, "and overtaken, and hindered one way or another till you catch
up."

Barnet cast a gloomy look at her, as if pained at the mention of a
course so excellent, but in the present case so impossible.

"My horse is the best in the county," she went on. "I can catch
him,--hang me if I cannot! I can delay him, too, if there be any way
under heaven to do so! Dickon, look to thy wounded fellows! See them
taken home, and show this gentleman the way to Sir William Crashaw's and
Mr. Brewby's. Come, Francis!"--this to the small attendant who kept
always near her--"God be praised, you are well-mounted, too!" And she
turned her horse's head toward Stevenage.

"But, Mistress Anne," cried Dickon, in dismay, "you will be
robbed--killed! Ride not without company!"

"Let go, Dickon, and do as I bid! I shall ride so fast, the fiend
himself cannot catch me, till I fall in with that traitor; and then I
shall have him and his men for company till this officer come up to him.
Master Messenger, for mine own reasons I promise to impede Sir
Valentine; to be a burden, a weight, and a chain upon him, holding him
back by all means I can devise, till you bear your letters and o'ertake
him. Dickon, heed my orders! Follow me. Francis! Ods-daggers, must I be
a milksop, and afraid o' nights, because I wasn't born to wear hose
instead of petticoats?" And having by this time got her horse clear of
the group in the road, she made off toward Stevenage, followed by her
mounted page. Francis.

"It may turn out well for us that Sir Valentine Fleetwood happened to
kill her brother," was the only comment of Roger Barnet, as he mounted
the horse his man Hudsdon had newly saddled. He had seen much and many,
in his time, and was not surprised at anything, especially if it bore
the shape of a woman.




CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST DAY OF THE FLIGHT.

"That wench is stark mad, or wonderful froward."--_The Taming of the
Shrew._


The object of this double chase, Master Marryott, rode on with his two
men, through the night, beyond Stevenage, at what pace it seemed best to
maintain. The slowness, incredible to a bicyclist or horseman who to-day
follows the same route, was all the greater for the darkness; but
slowness had good cause without darkness. English horse-breeding had not
yet shown or sought great results in speed. An Elizabethan steed would
make a strange showing on a twentieth century race-track; for the
special product of those days was neither horses nor machines, but men.
And such as the horses were, what were the roads they had to traverse!
When a horse put his foot down, the chances were that it would land in a
deep rut, or slide crunching down the hardened ridge at the side
thereof, or find lodgment in a soggy puddle, or sink deep into soft
earth, or fall, like certain of the Scriptural seed, upon stony places.
It is no wonder, then, that on a certain occasion, when Queen Elizabeth
was particularly impatient for a swift answer to a letter she caused
sent to the keepers of Mary Stuart, the messenger's time from London to
Fotheringay and back was at the rate of less than sixty miles a day. As
for travel upon wheels, an example thereof will occur later in this
narrative. But there was in those days one compensatory circumstance to
fugitives flying with a rapidity then thought the greatest attainable:
if they could not fly any faster, neither could their pursuers.

The night journey of our three riders continued in silence. As no sound
of other horses now came from behind or from anywhere else, and as the
objects passed in the darkness were but as indistinct figures in thick
ink against a ground of watered ink. Hal's senses naturally turned
inward, and mainly upon what was then foremost in the landscape of his
mind. This was the face of Mistress Anne Hazlehurst; and the more he
gazed upon the image thereof, the more he sighed at having to increase
the distance between himself and the reality. His reluctance to going
from the neighborhood of her was none the less for the matter-of-fact
promptness with which he did go therefrom. The face was no less a magnet
to him for that he so readily and steadily resisted its drawing powers.
Those drawing powers would, of course, by the very nature of magnets,
decrease as he went farther from their source; but as yet they were
marvellously strong. Such is the charm exerted upon impressionable youth
by a pair of puzzling eyes, a mysterious expression, a piquant contour,
allied to beauty. All the effect of his first sight of that face was
revived, and eked to greater magnitude by his strange confrontation with
her, proud and wrathful in the poor lantern rays that fell
intermittently and shiftingly upon her in the dark road.

He wondered what would be her subsequent proceedings that night; tried
to form a mental panorama of her conduct regarding her wounded servants;
of her actions now that she saw her design upset, the tenor of her life
necessarily affected by this new catastrophe to her household. He pitied
her, as he thought of the confused and difficult situation into which
she had been so suddenly plunged. And then he came to consider what must
be her feelings toward himself. Looking upon him as her brother's
slayer, she must view him with both hate and horror. His violent
treatment of her servants would augment the former feeling to a very
madness of impotent wrath.

Yet it was not Hal Marryott that she hated,--it was the make-believe Sir
Valentine Fleetwood; not the player, but the part he played. Still, a
dislike of a character assumed by an actor often refuses to separate
the actor from the character; moreover, she must necessarily hate him,
should she ever come to know him, for having assumed that part,--for
being, indeed, the aider of her enemy against herself. Hal registered
one determination: should the uncertain future--now of a most exceeding
uncertainty in his case--bring him in his own person into the horizon of
this woman, he would take care she should not know he had played this
part. What had passed between them should be blotted out; should be as
if indeed Sir Valentine, not Hal Marryott, had escaped her in the road.
And Hal bethought himself of one gain that the encounter had yielded
him: it had acquainted him with the name and place of the previously
unknown beauty. Some day, when he should have gone through with all this
business, he might indeed seek her.

When he should have gone through with this business? The uncertain
future came back to his thoughts. What would be the outcome of this
strange flight? So strange, that if he should tell his friends in London
of it, they would laugh at the tale as at a wild fiction. Fool a trained
man-hunter, a royal messenger grown old in catching people for the
council, and fool him by such a device as Hal had employed! Act a part
in real life, even for a moment, to the complete deception of the
spectator intended to be duped! To be sure, Dick Tarleton had done so,
when he pretended in an inn at Sandwich to be a seminary priest, in
order to be arrested and have the officers pay his score and take him to
London, where, being known, he was sure to be discharged. But Dick
Tarleton was a great comedian, and had essayed to represent no certain
identifiable seminary priest; whereas Master Marryott, who had dared
impersonate a particular known man, was but a novice at acting.

But Hal soon perceived this fact: that playing a part on the stage and
playing a part in real life are two vastly different matters. A great
actor of the first may be a great failure in the second, and the worst
stage player may, under sufficient stress, fill an assumed character
deceptively in real life. The spectator in a theatre expects to see a
character pretended, and knows that what he sees is make-believe, not
real. A spectator in real life, chosen to be duped, expects no such
thing, and is therefore ready to take a pretence for what it purports to
be. Whatever may occur eventually to undeceive him, he is in proper mind
for deception at first contact with the pretence. And the very
unlikelihood of such an attempt as Hal's, the very seeming impossibility
of its success, was reason for Roger Barnet's not having suspected it.

These thoughts now occurred to Hal for the first time. Should he succeed
in his novel adventure, he might congratulate himself upon the
achievement, not of a great feat of stage-playing, indeed, though to his
stage training he owed his quick perception and imitation of Sir
Valentine's chief physical peculiarities, but of a singular and daring
act, in which he both actually and figuratively played a part.

But was he destined to succeed? Was Roger Barnet still upon his track?
Or was he fleeing from nothing, leaving a track for nobody to follow?
Well, he must trust to those at Fleetwood house to keep Sir Valentine's
actual whereabouts from discovery, and to Barnet's skill in picking up
the trace that a fugitive _must_ leave, willy-nilly. But what if fate,
so fond of playing tricks on mortals, should conceive the whim of
covering up the track of this one fugitive who desired his track to be
seen? Hal cast away this thought. He must proceed, confidently, though
in blindness as to what was doing behind him. At present, silence was
there; no sound of far-off horse-hoofs. But this might be attributed to
Barnet's interruption by Anne's party; to measures for procuring fresh
horses, and to the necessary delivery of the letters of which the queen
had told him. And so, fleeing from cold darkness and the unknown into
cold darkness and the unknown, deep in his thoughts, and trusting to his
star. Master Marryott rode on through Baldock and toward Biggleswade.
Kit Bottle presently called his attention to their having passed out of
Hertfordshire into Bedfordshire.

The captain had been hard put to it for a fellow talker. His remarks to
Hal had elicited only absent monosyllables or silence. At last, with a
gulp as of choking down an antipathy, he had ridden forward to Anthony
and tried conversation with that person. Master Underhill listened as
one swallows by compulsion a disagreeable dose, and gave brief, surly
answers. Kit touched with perfect freedom upon the other's most private
concerns, not deeming that a despised dissenter had a right to the
ordinary immunities.

"Marry, I know not which astoundeth me the more," said the soldier;
"that a papist should keep a Puritan in's household, or that the Puritan
should serve the papist!"

Anthony was for a moment silent, as if to ignore the impudent speech;
but then, in a manner of resignation, as if confession and apology were
part of his proper punishment, he said, with a lofty kind of humility:

"The case no more astoundeth you than it reproacheth me. It biteth my
conscience day and night, and hath done so this many a year. Daily I
resolve me to quit the service of them that cherish the gauds and
idolatries of papistry. But the flesh is weak; I was born in Sir
Valentine's household, and I could not find strength to wrench me from
it."

"Ay," said Kit, "no doubt it hath been in its way a fat stewardship,
though the estate be decreased. The master being so oft abroad, and all
left to your hands, I'll warrant there have been plump takings, for balm
to the bites o' conscience."

"I perceive you are a flippant railer; but you touch me not. What should
they of no religion understand of the bites of conscience?"

"No religion! Go to, man! Though I be a soldier, and of a free life,
look you, I've practised more religions than your ignorance wots of; and
every one of them better than your scurvy, hang-dog, vinegar-faced non
conformity! Nay, I have been Puritan, too, when it served my turn, in
the days when I was of Walsingham's men. He had precisian leanings, and
so had the clerk o' the council. Mr. Beal. But you are an ingrate, to
fatten on a good service, yet call it a reproach!"

"Fatten!" echoed the Puritan, glancing down at his spare frame. "Mayhap
it hath been a good service formerly, by comparison with its having this
night made me partaker in a five days' lie, abettor of a piece of
play-acting, and associate of a scurrilous soldier!"

With which Anthony Underhill quickened his horse so as to move from the
captain's side; whereupon Kit, too amazed for timely outward
resentment, lapsed into silent meditation.

They rode through Biggleswade. Fatigue was now telling on them. Hal's
latest sleep had been that of the previous morning, in the cold open air
of Whitehall garden,--an age ago it seemed! Kit's most recent slumbers,
taken even earlier, had been, doubtless, in equally comfortless
circumstances. Hal learned, by a question, that Anthony had passed
yesternight in bed, warm and sober. So Hal decided that when the three
should stop at dawn for rest, food, change of horses, and the removal of
the false beard, himself and Kit should attempt an hour's repose while
Anthony should watch. The Puritan should be one of the sleepers, Kit the
watcher, at the second halt. Hal planned and announced all details for
assuring an immediate flight on the distant advent of the pursuers. A
system of brief stops and of alternate watches could be employed
throughout the whole flight without loss of advantage, for Barnet also
would have to make similar delays for rest, food, and the changing or
baiting of horses.

On wore the night. They passed through Eaton Socon, and continued
northward instead of turning into St. Neots at the right. They took
notice here, as they had taken at previous forkings of the road, that
there were houses at or near the junction,--houses in which uneasy
slumberers would be awakened by their passing and heed which way their
horses went. Roger Barnet would have but to ride up noisily, and,
perchance, pound and call at a house or two, to bring these persons to
windows with word of what they had heard. Hal marvelled as he thought of
it the more, how the nature of things will let no man traverse this
world, or any part of it, without leaving trace of his passage. He saw
in this material fact an image of life itself, and in the night silence,
broken only by the clatter of his horses and by some far-off dog's bark
or cock's crow, he had many new thoughts. So he rode into
Huntingdonshire, and presently, as the pallor of dawn began to blanch
the ashen sky, he passed Kimbolton, whose castle now seemed a chill
death-place for poor Catherine of Aragon; and, four miles farther on, he
drew up, in the dim early light, before the inn at Catworth Magna, and
set Kit bawling lustily for the landlord.

A blinking hostler came from the stable yard, and the beefy-looking host
from the inn door, at the same time. But the travellers would not get
off their mounts until they were assured of obtaining fresh ones.
Captain Bottle did the talking. The new horses were brought out to the
green before the inn. Kit dismounted and examined them, then struck a
bargain with the innkeeper for their use, dragging the latter's slow
wits to a decision by main force. This done, Hal leaped to the ground,
called for a room fronting on the green, a speedy breakfast served
therein, a razor and shaving materials taken thither, and some oat-cakes
and ale brought out to Anthony, who should stay with the horses.

Hal then strode up and down the green, while Anthony ate and Kit and the
hostler transferred the saddles and bridles. He kept well muffled about
the face with his cloak, in such manner as at once to display his beard
and yet conceal the evidence of its falseness. The new horses ready,
Anthony mounted one, and, under pretence of exercising them, moved off
with them toward the direction whence Barnet would eventually come. Hal,
to forestall hindrance in case of a necessarily hasty departure, handed
the innkeeper gold enough to cover all charges he might incur, and was
shown, with Kit, to a small, bare-walled, wainscoted, plastered,
slope-roofed room up-stairs. He threw open the casement toward the
green, and promptly fell upon the eggs, fish, and beer that were by this
time served upon a board set on stools instead of on trestles. Finishing
simultaneously with Kit, Hal took off his false beard, strewed its
severed tufts over the floor, and then submitted his face, which had a
few days' natural growth of stubble, to a razor wielded by the captain.
After this operation, the two stretched themselves upon the bed, in
their clothes, their heads toward the open window.

A dream of endless riding, varied by regularly renewed charges against a
wall of plunging horses that invariably fled away to intervene again,
and by the alternate menacings and mockings of a beautiful face,
culminated in a clamorous tumult like the shouting of a multitude. Hal
sprang up. Bottle was bounding from the bed at the same instant.

The sound was only the steadily repeated, "Halloo, halloo!" of Anthony
Underhill beneath the open window. Hal looked out. The Puritan sat his
horse on the green, holding the other two animals at his either side,
all heads pointed northward. On seeing Hal, he beckoned and was silent.

Hal and Kit rushed to the passage, thence down the stairs, and through
the entrance-way, to horse. The landlord, called forth by Anthony's
hullabaloo, stared at them in wonder. Hal returned his gaze, that an
impression of the newly shaven face might remain well fixed in the
host's mind; and then jerked rein for a start. Neither Hal nor Kit had
yet taken time to look for the cause of Anthony's alarm. As they
galloped away from the inn, Hal heard the patter of horses coming up
from the south. He turned in his saddle, expecting to see Roger Barnet
and his crew in full chase.

But the horses were only two in number, and on them were Mistress
Hazlehurst, in a crimson cloak and hood, and the page in green who had
attended her at the theatre. Hal's heart bounded with sudden pleasure.
As he gazed back at her, he caught himself smiling.

She saw him, noted his two companions, and seemed to be in doubt. The
landlord was still before the inn. She reined up, and spoke to him. Hal
could see the innkeeper presently, while answering her, put his hand to
his chin. "Good!" thought Hal; "he is telling her that, though I depart
smooth-faced, I arrived bearded."

The next moment, she and the page were riding after the three fugitives.

Without decreasing his pace, Hal asked Anthony:

"Was it she only that you saw coming? Are Barnet's men behind?"

"'Twas she only. But she is enough to raise the country on us!"

"Think you that is her purpose?"

"Ay," replied Anthony. "She hath heard of the treason matter from the
pursuivant, and hath shot off, like bolt from bow, to denounce you. 'Tis
her method of vengeance."

"'Tis like a woman--of a certain kind," commented Kit Bottle, who had
taken in the situation as promptly as the others had.

"'Tis like a Hazlehurst," said Anthony.

"Well," said Master Marryott, for a pretext, "'tis doubtless as you say;
but I desire assurance. It may serve us to know her intentions. She
cannot harm us here." (They were now out of the village.) "Though she
would raise hell's own hue and cry about us, she might halloo her
loudest, none would hear at this part of the road. We shall wait for
her."

Anthony cast a keen glance at Hal, and Kit Bottle thrust his tongue in
his cheek and looked away,--manifestations at which Hal could only turn
red and wish that either of the two had given some open cause for
rebuke. He was determined, however; the temptation to play with fire in
the shape of a beautiful woman was too alluring, the danger apparently
too little. So the three horses dropped to a walk, and presently the two
that followed were at their heels. Hal looked back as she came on, to
see if she still carried the sword she had used on the previous night;
but he saw no sign of it about her. In fact, she had given it to
Francis, who bore at his girdle a poniard also.

"Mistress, you travel ill-protected," was Hal's speech of greeting.

"So my brother must have done when he met you last," was her prompt and
defiant answer.

She let her horse drop into the gait of Hal's, and made no move to go
from his side. The Puritan resumed his place at the head, and Francis,
in order to be immediately behind his mistress, fell in with Kit
Bottle. In this order the party of five proceeded northward, their
horses walking.

"I did not harm your brother," reiterated Marryott, with a sigh.

"I perceive," she replied, ironically, "you are not the man that hurt my
brother. You 

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