CHAPTER XXII.
SPEECH WITHOUT WORDS.
"Her eye discourses; I will answer it."--_Romeo and Juliet._
Late in the afternoon of that day--Tuesday. March 10th--there rode intoSkipton from the north, and took lodging for the night at the principalinn, a party of horsemen, commanded by a stout, hard-browed,black-bearded man, and conducting a pale, tired young gentleman whosehands were tied behind him and whose ankles were fastened with a ropethat passed beneath the body of his led horse.
When the troop had come to a halt, and accommodations, had beenbespoken, the leader caused two of his men to release the prisoner'slegs, but not his hands, and then marched with him, preceded andfollowed by guards, to an upper room overlooking the stableyard. Herefour armed men were left with the prisoner, to whom presently supper wasbrought. Though without weapons, his wrists were still kept tied; hisfood had to be conveyed to his mouth by one of his guards. He mightsleep on the bed when he chose; but asleep or awake he must remain thusguarded and bound.
Five minutes after the arrival of this troop at the inn, a smaller partyappeared from the same direction. Its chief figure was a weary-lookingyoung lady, deeply buried in her thoughts, and attended by a youthfulpage whose head was bandaged, a boldfaced old fellow, and a lean andsad-visaged man in sombre garments. This company, finding the first innnow full, sought and obtained lodging at a smaller one, not far away.
On the journey thither, these two groups of riders had been more thanonce in sight of each other. Both Marryott and Barnet had observed thatCaptain Bottle and the Puritan were serving Mistress Hazlehurst asescort,--a circumstance that seemed to the pursuivant quite natural,since the lady was no friend of Marryott's and the two men were, inBarnet's belief, Marryott's betrayers. Barnet himself had offered to lether ride under his protection on the southward journey; but she hadrefused, and had watched in silence, with Kit and Anthony, the departureof the prisoner from Foxby Hall. Whatever arrangement she had made withthe two men must have been made after that departure.
Hal explained matters to himself by the supposition that Kit Bottle andAnthony, whom she, too, must regard as his betrayers, had offered hertheir escort, that they might with less suspicion follow close upon theheels of his captors toward London. He knew that she was ill supplied inpurse for the homeward journey, and he guessed that she had obtained ofAnthony a loan of money to pay the escort and inn charges. In thisguess, he was right; but it was scarce possible that he should havedivined what other understanding had passed between the lady and his twoadherents.
He was glad, in the dull way in which thought and feeling now workedwithin him, that she had found so good an escort. When she had declinedBarnet's offer, he had feared she might unwittingly expose herself tonew danger, though he had believed that Kit and Anthony, knowing his ownwishes, would protect her, in spite of herself, to some gentleman'shouse where she might procure both money and servants.
As for the robbers who had shared his siege at Foxby Hall, Hal knew, bytheir absence from Mistress Hazlehurst's party, that they had been leftto choose their own ways. The money he had given them would enable themto transport themselves to distant parts of the kingdom ere Rumney waslikely to traverse again the neighborhood of Foxby Hall.
Hal slept lightly but calmly. His slumber was but half slumber, even ashis waking state was a kind of lethargic dream. He recked not of past,present, or future.
At dawn breakfast was brought to him and readily eaten. So indifferenthad he become, so little feeling was active in him, so little emotionwas there to affect his physical state, that not even his appetite wasaltered; his body led a healthy, normal existence, save for the fatiguefrom which it was already recovering, but his mind and heart languishedhalf inert.
After breakfast the southward road was resumed, with no deviation fromthe order of the previous day. Anne's party rode out from the other innas Barnet's was passing. Was this mere accident, thought Hal, or was itby precaution of Kit Bottle?
The way was choked with snow. In some places this had drifted so as tobury the fences, where it happened--as was rare--that the road wasflanked by such enclosures. In other spots, the earth was swept bare.The drifting still continued, for, though the day was clear, anotherhigh wind had arisen. It blew the fine, biting crystals into the riders'faces, reddened their cheeks and eyelids, and seemed to add to thediscomfort of Roger Barnet.
For the sufferings of the pursuivant, due to the use of the wounded legwhen it demanded rest, were now plainly telling upon him. His face washaggard; under his breath, he was fretful; such manifestations, on thepart of a man so obstinate against the show of pain, meant that he wasin physical agony.
At Halifax, he ordered a rest for dinner. The day being very cold,Marryott was led to a room in the inn's topmost story, where he dinedwith four guards precisely as he had supped at Skipton. Before enteringthe town, he had lost sight of Mistress Hazlehurst's party; indeed, itwas not often, on the journey, that he availed himself of some bend ofthe road to turn his head and look back.
When he had finished his dinner, Marryott let his glance stray idlythrough the window. He had a view of a side lane that ran, apparently,from a street beneath his room. The lane ended at its junction withanother street. Up and down that other street, so as to cross the end ofthe lane at brief intervals, a riderless horse was being led by a boywhose head was wrapped around with handkerchiefs. Was not the boyFrancis? And why was he exercising a saddled horse in such a place sofar from this inn, not perceptibly near any other? The question dwelt inHal's mind for a moment: then fled, at Barnet's summons to horse.
Not till he had covered several miles out of Halifax did Marryott catchhis next glimpse of Anne and her three attendants. They were then at agood distance behind; but gradually during the afternoon they decreasedthe distance,--a natural enough thing to do, for the proximity ofBarnet's martial-looking troop was a protection. That evening bothparties lodged at Barnesley. The state of the roads, and of Barnet'sleg, had forbidden faster progress. It was not quite dark when Hal wasled into the chamber where he was to sup and sleep. He sat down on ajoint-stool by the window.
Ten minutes passed. Awaiting his supper, he was still looking listlesslyout of the window at the darkening evening. Was not that AnthonyUnderhill yonder, leading a riderless horse to and fro upon the greenthat was visible through a gap in the row of houses opposite the inn? Itwas odd that he should haply be repeating in Hal's view at supper-timethe action that Francis had performed in Hal's sight at dinner-time. Thearrival of pickled herrings and ale drew Marryott's eyes from thewindow, and his mind from the spectacle.
The next morning, on arising to depart, Marryott by chance beheld, thistime with a touch of wondering amusement, another repetition of the sameperformance, with the single difference that now the leader of the horsewas Kit Bottle.
When some hours of the forenoon journey had been spent, Marryott,looking back, saw with a little surprise that Anne's party was closebehind his own. Barnet rode at his side, leading his horse; half of theescort rode two and two in front, the other half in the rear. These rearhorsemen intervened between Hal and Anne; but as he ascended the side ofa hollow he could look over the heads behind him to her as she descendedthe farther side.
Her glance met his; and in it was a kind of message, which she seemed tohave long awaited the moment for delivering. With all possible eloquenceof eyes and face, she appeared to express apology, a request for pardon,a wish to serve him! Ere he could assure himself by keener inspectionwhether he had read aright the look that had thrilled him out of hislethargy, he had reached the crest of the ascent, and the men behind himhad closed his view.
Poignantly alive now in mind and heart, he tormented himself for severalmiles with conjectures whether her expression had been intentional onher part or correctly translated on his. This he could best ascertain bysending her, at the first opportunity, a look in reply.
When he was next in line of sight with her, he glanced back his answer.It consisted merely of a
faint smile, soft and kindly, by which he hopedto say that he understood, forgave, and loved.
To his unutterable joy, she instantly responded with a smile that wasthe echo of his own.
This conversation, carried on so silently and at such distance, but sodecisive and full of import, was of course so conducted that Marryott'scaptors suspected nothing of it. A certain curiosity as to whether hissupposed betrayers were following him toward London was natural on thepart of one in his situation, and it accounted, in Barnet's mind, forhis looking back.
At Clown, dining in the very ale-house chamber whence MistressHazlehurst had looked at his detention by the constable's men, Marryottsaw, some way down the lane from which the coach had been drawn, ariderless horse led back and forth by Francis. It flashed upon him atlast that the continual recurrence of this scene must be more than merecoincidence.
In the afternoon, Marryott had but one opportunity to exchange lookswith Anne. This was where the road turned sharply in such directionthat, by glancing sidewise and across the back of Barnet's horse, hecould see her through a sparse copse that filled the angle. Herexpression now suggested alertness and craft, as if for his imitation;and she pointed with her forefinger to the horse ridden by Francis ather side. The trees cut off his view ere the gesture was complete; buthe understood; it meant, "You will find a horse ready, if you can breakfrom your guards!"