CHAPTER X.
THE LOCKED DOOR.
"When I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content."--_As You Like It._
Before alighting from her horse, Mistress Hazlehurst waited to see whather enemy should do. The enemy's first proceedings were similar to thosetaken upon his arrival at Catworth Magna. That is to say, through theexpeditious offices of Captain Bottle, new horses were placed readybefore the inn, ere the party dismounted from the tired ones; dinner anda room were bespoken; and all possible charges were forestalled byadvance payment. Anne imitated this whole arrangement precisely, causingno little wonder on the part of the inn people, that she should give herorders independently, though they were exactly like those of the threemen with whom she and her page were manifestly travelling. It wasmentally set down by the shrewd ones that here were man and wife, orbrother and sister, not on speaking terms, yet obliged to perform ajourney together.
Hal remained outside the inn with Anthony, till Bottle should ride backto keep watch. Anne stood near him, not irresolute, but to observe hisactions. Refreshed with a stirrup-cup and some cakes, Bottle soon rodeoff, with two led horses. Perceiving the object of this movement, Annedismissed the captain from her observation, that she might concentrateit upon the supposed Sir Valentine. As her boy Francis was in no lessneed of food and sleep than herself, she gave a coin to one of thehostlers, with orders to walk her horses up and down before the inn tillshe should come for them.
Hal counted on her fatigue to reinforce her proud determination that shewould not resort to the local authorities against him. Yet he would notgo to his chamber ere she went to hers. Deducing this from hisactions--for no speech passed between them while they tarried before theinn--and being indeed well-nigh too exhausted to stand, she finallycalled for a servant to show her to her room. Francis followed her, towait upon her at dinner and then to lie on a bench outside her door.
Hal watched her into the entrance-hall of the inn. At the foot of thestairs leading to the upper floor, she stopped, handed a piece of moneyto the attendant, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The fellowglanced toward the inn porch in which Hal was standing, and noddedobedience. Hal inferred that she was engaging to be notified instantlyin case of his departure. A moment later Hal beckoned Anthony tofollow, and went, under the guidance of the landlady herself, up to hisown room.
As he turned from the stair-head into the upper passage, he saw a doorclose, which he divined to be that of his fair enemy. A moment later aninn servant appeared with a bench, and placed it outside this door. Onreaching his own room, in the same passage, Hal noticed that this bench,on which Francis was to rest, stood in view of his own door, andalso--by way of the stairs--of the entrance-hall below. He smiled at theprecautions taken by the foe.
Examining his room, he saw that it had the required window overlookingthe front inn yard and the road beyond. Immediately beneath this windowwas the sloping roof of the inn porch. Having opened the casement, andmoved the bed's head near it, Hal turned to the dinner that a servantwas placing on a small trestle-table, for which there was ample freespace in the chamber. The English inns of those days were indeedcommodious, and those in the country towns were better than those inLondon. Hosts took pride in their tapestry, furniture, bedding, plate,and glasses. Some of the inns in the greater towns and roads had roomfor three hundred guests with their horses and servants. Noblementravelled with great retinues, and carried furniture with them. It wasa golden age of inns,--though, to be sure, the servants were in manycases in league with highway robbers, to whom they gave information ofthe wealth, destinations, routes, and times of setting forth ofwell-furnished guests. The inn at which Hal now refreshed himself, inOakham, was not of the large or celebrated ones. He had his own reasonsfor resorting to small and obscure hostelries. Yet he found the dinnergood, the ale of the best, and, after that, the bed extremelycomfortable, even though he lay in his clothes, with his hand on hissword-hilt.
He had flung himself down, immediately after dinner, not waiting for theplatters and cups to be taken away. Anthony, who had been as atable-fellow sour and monosyllabic, but by no means abstemious, for allhis Puritanism, was as prompt as Hal to avail himself of the comfort ofthe bed. His appreciation was soon evinced by a loud snoring, whosesturdy nasality seemed of a piece with his canting, rebuking manner ofspeech when he allowed himself to be lured into conversation. There wasin his snore a rhythmic wrestling and protesting, as of Jacob with theangel, or a preacher against Satan, that befitted well his righteousnon-conformity. From this thought--for which he wondered that he couldfind place when his situation provided so much other matter formeditation--Hal's mind lapsed into the incoherent visions of slumber,and soon deep sleep was upon him.
Hal had arranged that Kit Bottle should return to the inn and call him,after four hours, in the event of no appearance of the pursuit. When Halawoke with a start, therefore, and yet heard no such hallooing asAnthony had given at Catworth, he supposed that Kit must have summonedhim by a less alarming cry. His head shot out of the window, but hebeheld no Kit. Turning to Anthony, he saw that the Puritan had justopened his eyes.
"Didst hear anything?" queried Hal.
"Not sith I awoke," was the answer. "Yet meseems in my sleep there was aloud grating sound and a terrific crash."
"In our dreams we multiply the sounds that touch our ears," said Hal."It must have been a sound of omen, to have waked us both. So let usthink of a small grating sound--"
At that instant his eyes alighted on the door. He would have sworn a keyhad been in that door, though he had not locked it before sleeping. Hehad noticed the key for its great size and rustiness. But no key wasthere now, at least on the inside. Hal strode from the bed, and triedthe door. It was locked.
"How now?" quoth he. "Some one has robbed us of our key, and used it onthe wrong side of the door!"
"I warrant it should be no far seeking to find that some one," growledAnthony, rising to his feet.
"Ay," said Hal, "'tis just the shallow, childish stop-nobody thing awoman would do, and think she hath played a fine trick! Come,Anthony,"--Hal spoke the Puritan's name not superciliously now, for hewas beginning to like a fellow who could toil forward so uncomplaininglythrough fatigue and danger, yet make such full use of comforts when theyfell to him,--"I see Captain Bottle riding hither, at a walk. That means'tis four o'clock, though Master Barnet hath not yet shown his face. Wemust be taking horse again."
And he dropped out of the window to the porch roof, let himself down acorner-post, and stood in the inn yard. Anne's horses were still there.As soon as Anthony was beside him, Hal stepped into theentrance-passage. At the stair-foot stood Mistress Hazlehurst, her backto the door, giving some swift and excited commands to her page,Francis, who was ready to ride.
She turned to see who had entered the inn. On perceiving it was Hal, andthat his face wore an involuntary quizzical smile, she caught herbreath, and became the very picture of defeat and self-discoveredfoolishness.
"Have you seen aught of a key I lost?" said Hal, ere he thought. "I needit to unlock my door and get out of my room, as I am in some haste!"
She turned deep crimson at the jest; her eyes shot a glance of fire, herlips closed tight; and, without a word, she glided past him, and out toher horses. He saw in her look a new sense of the insufficiency of easyand obvious means, and a resolution to rise to the needs of her purpose.
"Her eyes are opened," mused Hal, following her and Francis to the yard."Her next step is like to be more considerable!"
Meeting Kit and the horses just within the inn yard gate, Hal andAnthony mounted. Anne and her page were prompt to follow their example.With courtesy, Hal held back his horses for her to precede him out tothe road. A minute afterward the five riders, so strangely brought intoa single group, were pushing northward in the cold, waning afternoon.
She had slept some, and was the better for the food she had taken. Yetthis riding was manifestly a wearier business than it could have been at
the time of her setting out. It was a chilly business, too, for Marchhad begun to turn out very January-like, and was steadily becoming moreso. The look of dogged endurance that mingled on her face with the newresolution there, continually touched Hal's tender and pitying side. Hiscountenance as continually showed his feelings, and she perceived themwith deep and ill-concealed resentment.
But she at last attained a degree of stolid iciness at which sheremained. It imposed upon Hal, riding at her side, a silence that becamethe harder to break as it became the less bearable. And the further shetried to put herself out of his pity, the greater his pity grew, for theeffort she was required to make. The more his admiration increased, too;and if pity is ever akin to love, it is certainly so when united toadmiration. Her determination had not the mannish mien, nor her dislikethe acrid, ill-bred aspect that would have repelled; they were of thewomanly and high-born character that made them rather pique and allure.Partly to provoke her feelings to some change of phase, partly to elicitrelief from the impassiveness in which she had sought refuge, partly forthe cruel pleasure sometimes inexplicably found in torturing the tenderand beautiful,--a pleasure followed by penitence as keen,--he made twoor three delicate jests about the locked door; these were received withmomentary glints of rage from her dark eyes, succeeded by coldness morefreezing than before.
The silence created--and diffused--by her enveloped the whole party,making the ride even more bleak than it was already from the wintry dayand the loneliness of the road. It was bad weather for travelling, lessby reason of the present cold than of the signs of impending storm."There is snow in the air," growled Anthony Underhill to himself, as ifhe smelled it. Of the country through which they passed, the most wasopen, only the pasture-land and the grounds pertaining immediately togentlemen's houses being fenced. Enclosures were a new thing in thosedays, defended by the raisers of sheep and cattle, bewailed by thefarmers who tilled the soil. Where the road did not run between woods orover wild moors, it gave views of far-off sheep-cotes, of mills, andhere and there of distant castle-towers, or the gables of some squire'srambling manor-house; or it passed through straggling villages, eachwith a central green having a may-pole and an open pool.
But most human life was indoors upon this evening of belated winter;still and brown was the landscape. Once, soon after they had passed fromRutlandshire into Leicestershire, a burst of yokelish laughter strucktheir ears from among some trees, like a sudden ray of light and warmthin a cold, dead world. It came from some yeomen's sons who weredestroying the eggs of birds of prey. The population of Melton Mowbraywas housed and at supper, as they rode through that town in the earlydusk without stop.
On into Nottinghamshire they went; and at last, checked alike bydarkness and by weariness, they came to a halt before a little, low,wobbly-looking wood-and-plaster inn at the junction of the Nottinghamroad with the cross-road to Newark.