CHAPTER VI
MY LORD BROCTON
I was as new to a life of action as an hour-old duckling is to water, andthis ironical upset of all my plans left me helpless. The very last manwhom I wanted to see Mistress Waynflete was here, his plumed hat sweepingto the floor, triumph on his handsome face and in his easy, languid tones.Indeed, more astonishing than his being here, was his manner and bearing.At Master Dobson's, a natural remark of mine had beaten all his wits outof him. Here his assurance was such that it puzzled me out of action.
"My sergeant, madam," he began, "no mean judge, since he has seen thereigning beauties of half the capitals of Europe, told me to expect aprize, but it is the prize. Master Wheatman, you are not, I am told, asgood a judge of cattle as Turnip Townshend, but you are, let me tell you,a better one of women. I understand you know. Both acres and solatiumshall be mine in any event. And, dear Margaret, though I do not understandwhat your haughtiness is doing here alone with my farmer friend, I needhardly say that your devoted servant greets you with all humility."
Again his hat curved in mockery through the air. He replaced it on hishead, drew his rapier, with quick turns of his wrist swished the suppleblade through the air till it sang, then flashed it out at me like thetongue of an adder, and said, "Sit you still, Farmer Wheatman, sit youstill. Move but your hand and I spit you like a lark on a skewer. So,little man, so!"
The contempt in his words stirred the gall in my liver, but I neitherspoke nor shifted, and he continued, addressing her, but with cold, amusedeyes fixed on me, "You see, sweet Margaret, how yokel blood means yokelmood. Your turnip-knight freezes at the sight of steel."
In part at least he spoke truth. I had rarely seen a naked sword, otherthan our time-worn and useless relic of the doughty Smite-and-spare-not,and had never sat thus at the point of one drawn in earnest on myself. Itis easy to blame me, and at the back of my own mind I was blaming andcursing myself, as I sat helpless there. I was keen as the blade he boreto help her, for here was her hour of uttermost need, but I did not seethat I should be capable of much service with a hole in my heart, and hehad me at his mercy beyond a doubt, so long as he had me in his eye. No,galling as it was, there was nothing to do but to wait the turn of events.Something might divert his attention. One second was all I wanted, and Isat there praying for it and ready for it. Meanwhile the scene, the talk,and she were full of interest.
Marry-me-quick's cottage was no hovel, either for size or appointments.Brocton was standing with his back to a dresser. On his left was the outerdoor, and on his right, between him and Mistress Waynflete, the door inthe party wall leading to the back room where the rabbit-stew was nowbeing dished up. Madam and I sat on opposite sides of the large hearth, asmall round table, drawn close to the fire for comfort and covered withthe supper things, occupied part of the space between us, but there wasplenty of room for action. When Brocton had stretched out his rapiertowards me in threat and command, the point was perhaps three feet from mybreast, and he could master my slightest movement.
And Mistress Waynflete. At the bridge in the afternoon I had noticed thatwhile danger for her father had stirred her heart to its dearest depth,danger for herself troubled her not one whit. When I looked at her nowthere was no fear in her face, which was calm as the face of a picturedsaint, but I saw questionings there and knew they were of me. Plainly asif she spoke the words, her great blue eyes were saying, "Am I leaning ona broken reed?" As she caught my look she turned to Brocton, and I grittedmy teeth and listened.
"So your lordship has found me!" She spoke easily and lightly. "How smallthe world must be since it cannot find room for me to avoid you!"
"Say rather, dear mistress, that my love draws me unerringly towards you."
"I thought I gathered that there was another motive for your coming hereto-night."
"Margaret, believe me, I am distraught," he said, not wholly in mockeryit seemed to me.
"So distraught, it seems, that you neglect your plainest duty as anofficer in order to corrupt, if you can, a supposed country maiden, ofwhom you have heard by chance. His Grace of Cumberland will be glad tohear of such devotion."
"Won't you listen to me, Margaret? You know I love you."
"If you were offering me, my lord, the only kind of love which anhonourable man can offer, I should still refuse it. Your reputation,character, and person are all equally disagreeable to me, and that youshould imagine that there is even the smallest chance of your succeeding,is an insult for which, were I a man, you should pay dearly."
"On the contrary, dear Margaret," he replied, in his most silken tones,plainly shifting to more favourable ground, "I fancy that the chance is byno means small."
"Your fancy does not interest me," was the cold reply.
"Every woman has her price, if I may adapt a phrase of the late SirRobert's, and I can pay yours. Excuse my frankness, Margaret. It would beunpardonable if we were not alone. Yon cattle-drover hardly counts asaudience, I fancy, for he is already as good as strung up as a rebel."
After a long silence, so long that I tried to find an explanation of it,she said, "You refer to my father?" There was a quaver in her voice whichall her bravery could not suppress.
"Exactly, Margaret, to your dear father."
"In times like this, no doubt, your conduct in arresting him will passfor legal, but fortunately some evidence will be required, and you havenone. The fact is that in your loyal zeal you have acted too soon."
"I thought your daughterly instincts would be aroused," he answered,scoffing openly as he saw his advantage. "They have lain dormant longerthan I expected. Believe me, Margaret, for my own purposes I have acted inthe very nick of time, and you will do well to drop your unfounded hopesof the future. Your father's fate is certain if I act, for I can call awitness--you remember Major Tixall, a beery but insinuating person--whoseevidence is enough to hang him fifty times over. Whether or not I produceit depends, as I say, on the depth of your affection for him."
"I shall know how to save my father, my lord, when the time comes. Now,perhaps, having played your last card, you will leave me."
"My dear Margaret," was the cool reply, "your innocence amazes me. Mylast card! Not at all, sweet queen. You are my last card."
"I? How so?"
"You, too, are a rebel, if I choose to say the word, and a dangerous oneto boot. So here's your choice: come where love awaits you or go where thegallows awaits you."
"And if I could so far forget my nature as to come where love of yoursort, the love of a mere brute beast, awaits me, you would forgeteverything?"
"Everything, Margaret."
"Your duty to your King included?"
"Certainly. There's nothing I will not do, or leave undone, at yourbehest for your fair sake."
"You flatter me, my lord, far above my poor deserts. And now, if yourlordship will excuse me,"--she arose at the words, pale and determined asdeath,--"I will e'en go and give myself up to some responsible officer andacquaint him with your conduct."
"He would not believe you, my sweet Margaret."
"You forget I have a witness, my lord." For the first time during theconversation she looked across at me.
"He would not be there to witness, Margaret. Surely you suppose that I amwise enough to prevent that move. Keep on sitting still, Farmer Oliver.I'm glad, believe me, to see you so interested. A difficult piece ofvirtue she is, to be sure, and if you could only escape a hanging, whichyou will not, you might have learned to-night a useful lesson in the artof managing a woman. It's an art, sir, a great, a curious art, and Iflatter myself I am somewhat of a master therein."
All this time he had kept me in his eye, and the point of his rapier wasready for my slightest move. It had grieved me to the heart to hear himshame this noble woman so, bargaining for her honour as lightly as amarketing housewife chaffers for a pullet. How she had felt it, I couldjudge in part by the deathly paleness of her face, and the tight hold shewas keeping on herself. She dropped into her chair again and
buried herface in her hands. He only smiled as one who presages a welcome triumph. Ikept still and silent, never moving my eyes from his, praying and waitingfor my second.
She raised her head and spoke again: "If I did not know you, my lord, Iwould plead with you. Two men's lives are in my hands, you say, and thereis"--she paused--"but one way"--another terrible pause--"of saving them."
"You want me to throw in the cattle-drover?" he asked gaily.
"Yes," she replied, in a scarcely audible whisper.
"It's throwing in five hundred acres of land each of which my fathervalues at a Jew's eye, let me tell you, but, egad, Margaret, you're notdear even at that. Run away home, Farmer Wheatman, and don't be foolenough to play the rebel again."
I sat still and silent. Speech was useless, and action not yet possible.That keen swordsman's eye must be diverted somehow. There was a God inheaven, and the rabbit-stew would be ready soon. It was useless to attemptto force matters. And as for his taunts, well, he was but feathering myarrows. So I sat on like a stone.
"Go, Master Wheatman," she urged faintly, but I did not even turn to lookat her. My heart was thumping on my ribs, my nerves tingling, my musclesinvoluntarily tightening for a spring.
"These yokels are so dull and lifeless, Margaret. He cannot understandour impatience." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her crimson to theroots of her hair at this vicious insult. "Off, my man," he added to me,"or I'll prick your bull's hide." He thrust out his rapier to give pointto the threat. Nothing moved me. My eyes were glued to his.
And now the door on his right hand opened, and little MistressMarry-me-quick appeared with our supper. She saw the sword directed at thebreast of the one man on earth she loved with all the fervour of herhonest, womanly heart. The sight scattered her senses. With anerve-racking shriek she flopped heavily to the floor, and the rabbit-stewflew from her hands and crashed loudly at his feet. It was too much for hiswine-sodden nerves. His eyes turned, his body slackened, the point of hisrapier flagged floorward. God had given me my second.
I bounded at him, not straight, but somewhat to his left. He recovered,but, anticipating a straight rush, thrust clean out on the expected lineof my leap. His blade ran through between my coat and waistcoat, and theguard thumped sore on my ribs. Then he was mine.
I struck hard on heart and belt and knocked the wind out of his body. Hesucked for breath like a drowning man. Now he could not call for help, andI finished him off, quickly, gladly, and smilingly. His twitching fingersfumbled at his belt as if seeking a pistol. Finding none, he made nofurther attempt to defend himself, and covered his face with his arms tokeep off my blows, but I struck him with such fierce strength on hisunprotected temples that he weakened and dropped them. His ghastly,bleeding face turned upwards, his dazed eyes pleading for the mercy he haddenied her a moment ago. It was brute appealing to brute in vain, and withone last blow on the chin that drove his teeth together like the crack ofa pistol and nearly tore his head off his shoulders, I knocked himsenseless to the floor.
His rapier hung in the skirt of my coat, so close had I been to sure andsudden death. I drew it out and tossed it to the floor at his side. "Iwish, madam," said I, reaching out for mother's domino, "that we couldhave saved the rabbit-stew."
"Is he dead?" she whispered, with white lips, coming forward and lookingshudderingly down on him with troubled eyes.
"No such luck," said I. "He may be round in five minutes, but that'senough, though poor little Marry-me-quick will have to be left to fend forherself." I helped her into the domino, pulled the hood over the wonderfulhair, and seized my own hat.
"Now, Mistress Waynflete," said I, "the northern halt of Staffordshire isbefore us, and the sooner some of it is behind us the better." With thesewords I led her to the door, which I closed carefully behind me, and intothe street.
A little explanation will make our subsequent movements clearer. Theeastern side of Stafford is roughly bow-shaped. The main street is thestraight string and the wood is the curve of the wall, now mostly fallendown and in ruins, the line of which was followed by the street we werein, and only some fifty yards from the southern end of the string. Themarksman's thumb represents the market square, and the arrow the line ofthe east gate street.
No cat in the town knew it better than I did, or could travel it betterin the dark. Indeed, our only danger now came from the moon, but,fortunately, she had not yet climbed very high. Mistress Waynflete placedher arm in mine and we turned to the right, away from the still noisy andcrowded main street. We passed an ale-house bursting with customers, thecentral figure among whom, plainly visible from the street, was PippinPat, an Irishman with so huge a head that he had become a celebrity underthis name for miles around. He had made himself rolling drunk and,suitably to the occasion, had been made into a Highlander by the simpleprocess of robbing him of his breeches and rubbing his head with ruddle.He was a sorry sight enough, but, the main thing, he had attracted anenormous company. I rejoiced to see him, for it meant that the wicket ofhis master's tanyard, half a stone's throw ahead, would be unbolted. Thiswould save us a longish detour and lessen the danger of being observed.
Arrived at the tanyard gate, I tried the wicket. It was unbolted, as Ihad anticipated, and we were soon in the quiet and obscurity of thetanyard. The far side of the yard was separated by a low stone wall fromthe end of a blind alley leading into Eastgate Street. I guided mycompanion safely by the edges of the tan-pits, and on arriving at thewall, I made no apology but lifted her on to it. As she sat there a shaftof moonlight lit up her fine, brave face. I feasted my eyes upon it for amoment, and then made to leap over to assist her to the other side, butshe stayed me with a hand on each shoulder.
"I will go no farther, Master Wheatman," she said in a low, troubledvoice, "till you forgive me."
"Forgive you?" I cried, astounded. "Forgive you? What for?"
"For thinking meanly of you. I thought you were afraid of Brocton. Notuntil that lion leap of yours did I realize how cleverly and nobly you hadsat there through his insults, foreseeing the exact moment when you couldmaster him. My only explanation, I do not offer it as an excuse, is thatthe utter beast in Brocton makes it hard for me to think well of any man.Oh, believe me, I am ashamed, confounded, and miserable. Say you forgiveme!"
"Madam," I said laughingly, "the next time I play the knight-errant, mayGod send me a less observant damsel. There's nothing to forgive. The plaintruth is that I was frightened, a little bit. But I'm new to this sort ofthing, and I hope to improve." Then, after a pause, I met her eyes fullwith mine and added, "As we go on."
"Frightened," she said scornfully, "you frightened, you who leapedunarmed on the best swordsman in London? No, don't mock me, MasterWheatman, forgive me."
"Of course I do, and thank you for your kind words. And we've both gotsome one to forgive."
She smiled radiantly--"Whom? And what for?"
I leaped over the wall, and put my arms around her to lift her down.
"Marry-me-quick, for dropping the rabbit-stew."