THE TAVERN KNIGHT

By Rafael Sabatini

CONTENTS

 I. ON THE MARCH

 II. ARCADES AMBO

 III. THE LETTER

 IV. AT THE SIGN OF THE MITRE

 V. AFTER WORCESTER FIELD

 VI. COMPANIONS IN MISFORTUNE

 VII. THE TAVERN KNIGHT'S STORY

 VIII. THE TWISTED BAR

 IX. THE BARGAIN

 X. THE ESCAPE

 XI. THE ASHBURNS

 XII. THE HOUSE THAT WAS ROLAND MARLEIGH'S

 XIII. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF KENNETH

 XIV. THE HEART OF CYNTHIA ASHBURN

 XV. JOSEPH'S RETURN

 XVI. THE RECKONING

 XVII. JOSEPH DRIVES A BARGAIN

 XVIII. COUNTER-PLOT

 XIX. THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY

 XX. THE CONVERTED HOGAN

 XXI. THE MESSAGE KENNETH BORE

 XXII. SIR CRISPIN'S UNDERTAKING

 XXIII. GREGORY'S ATTRITION

 XXIV. THE WOOING OF CYNTHIA

 XXV. CYNTHIA'S FLIGHT

 XXVI. TO FRANCE

 XXVII. THE AUBERGINE DU SOLEIL

THE TAVERN KNIGHT

CHAPTER I. ON THE MARCH

He whom they called the Tavern Knight laughed an evil laugh--such alaugh as might fall from the lips of Satan in a sardonic moment. 

He sat within the halo of yellow light shed by two tallow candles, whosesconces were two empty bottles, and contemptuously he eyed the youthin black, standing with white face and quivering lip in a corner ofthe mean chamber. Then he laughed again, and in a hoarse voice, sorelysuggestive of the bottle, he broke into song. He lay back in his chair, his long, spare legs outstretched, his spurs jingling to the lilt of hisditty whose burden ran:

 On the lip so red of the wench that's sped His passionate kiss burns, still-O! For 'tis April time, and of love and wine Youth's way is to take its fill-O! Down, down, derry-do!

 So his cup he drains and he shakes his reins, And rides his rake-helly way-O! She was sweet to woo and most comely, too, But that was all yesterday-O! Down, down, derry-do!

The lad started forward with something akin to a shiver. 

"Have done, " he cried, in a voice of loathing, "or, if croak you must, choose a ditty less foul!"

"Eh?" The ruffler shook back the matted hair from his lean, harshface, and a pair of eyes that of a sudden seemed ablaze glared at hiscompanion; then the lids drooped until those eyes became two narrowslits--catlike and cunning--and again he laughed. 

"Gad's life, Master Stewart, you have a temerity that should saveyou from grey hairs! What is't to you what ditty my fancy seizes on?'Swounds, man, for three weary months have I curbed my moods, and wornmy throat dry in praising the Lord; for three months have I been aliving monument of Covenanting zeal and godliness; and now that at lastI have shaken the dust of your beggarly Scotland from my heels, you--theveriest milksop that ever ran tottering from its mother's lap wouldchide me because, yon bottle being done, I sing to keep me from waxingsad in the contemplation of its emptiness!"

There was scorn unutterable on the lad's face as he turned aside. 

"When I joined Middleton's horse and accepted service under you, I heldyou to be at least a gentleman, " was his daring rejoinder. 

For an instant that dangerous light gleamed again from his companion'seye. Then, as before, the lids drooped, and, as before, he laughed. 

"Gentleman!" he mocked. "On my soul, that's good! And what may you knowof gentlemen, Sir Scot? Think you a gentleman is a Jack Presbyter, or adroning member of your kirk committee, strutting it like a crow inthe gutter? Gadswounds, boy, when I was your age, and George Villierslived--"

"Oh, have done!" broke in the youth impetuously. "Suffer me to leaveyou, Sir Crispin, to your bottle, your croaking, and your memories. "

"Aye, go your ways, sir; you'd be sorry company for a dead man--thesorriest ever my evil star led me into. The door is yonder, and shouldyou chance to break your saintly neck on the stairs, it is like to bewell for both of us. "

And with that Sir Crispin Galliard lay back in his chair once more, andtook up the thread of his interrupted song

 But, heigh-o! she cried, at the Christmas-tide, That dead she would rather be-O! Pale and wan she crept out of sight, and wept

 'Tis a sorry--

A loud knock that echoed ominously through the mean chamber, fell inthat instant upon the door. And with it came a panting cry of--

"Open, Cris! Open, for the love of God!"

Sir Crispin's ballad broke off short, whilst the lad paused in the actof quitting the room, and turned to look to him for direction. 

"Well, my master, " quoth Galliard, "for what do you wait?"

"To learn your wishes, sir, " was the answer sullenly delivered. 

"My wishes! Rat me, there's one without whose wishes brook less waiting!Open, fool!"

Thus rudely enjoined, the lad lifted the latch and set wide the door, which opened immediately upon the street. Into the apartment stumbled aroughly clad man of huge frame. He was breathing hard, and fear was writlarge upon his rugged face. An instant he paused to close the door afterhim, then turning to Galliard, who had risen and who stood eyeing him inastonishment--

"Hide me somewhere, Cris, " he panted--his accent proclaiming his Irishorigin. "My God, hide me, or I'm a dead man this night!"

"'Slife, Hogan! What is toward? Has Cromwell overtaken us?"

"Cromwell, quotha? Would to Heaven 'twere no worse! I've killed a man!"

"If he's dead, why run?"

The Irishman made an impatient gesture. 

"A party of Montgomery's foot is on my heels. They've raised the wholeof Penrith over the affair, and if I'm taken, soul of my body, 'twill bea short shrift they'll give me. The King will serve me as poor Wrycraftwas served two days ago at Kendal. Mother of Mercy!" he broke off, as his ear caught the clatter of feet and the murmur of voices fromwithout. "Have you a hole I can creep into?"

"Up those stairs and into my room with you!" said Crispin shortly. "Iwill try to head them off. Come, man, stir yourself; they are here. "

Then, as with nimble alacrity Hogan obeyed him and slipped from theroom, he turned to the lad, who had been a silent spectator of whathad passed. From the pocket of his threadbare doublet he drew a pack ofgreasy playing cards. 

"To table, " he said laconically. 

But the boy, comprehending what was required of him, drew back at sightof those cards as one might shrink from a thing unclean. 

"Never!" he began. "I'll not defile--"

"To table, fool!" thundered Crispin, with a vehemence few men could havewithstood. "Is this a time for Presbyterian scruples? To table, and helpa me play this game, or, by the living God, I'll--" Without completinghis threat he leaned forward until Kenneth felt his hot, wine-ladenbreath upon his cheek. Cowed by his words, his gesture, and above all, his glance, the lad drew up a chair, mumbling in explanation--intendedas an excuse to himself for his weakness--that he submitted since aman's life was at stake. 

Opposite him Galliard resumed his seat with a mocking smile that madehim wince. Taking up the cards, he flung a portion of them to the boy, whilst those he retained he spread fanwise in his hand as if about toplay. Silently Kenneth copied his actions. 

Nearer and louder grew the sounds of the approach, lights flashed beforethe window, and the two men, feigning to play, sat on and waited. 

"Have a care, Master Stewart, " growled Crispin sourly, then in a loudervoice--for his quick eye had caught a glimpse of a face that watchedthem from the window--"I play the King of Spades!" he cried, withmeaning look. 

A blow was struck upon the door, and with it came the command to "Openin the King's name!" Softly Sir Crispin rapped out an oath. Then herose, and with a last look of warning to Kenneth, he went to open. And as he had greeted Hogan he now greeted the crowd mainly ofsoldiers--that surged about the threshold. 

"Sirs, why this ado? Hath the Sultan Oliver descended upon us?"

In one hand he still held his cards, the other he rested upon the edgeof the open door. It was a young ensign who stood forward to answer him. 

"One of Lord Middleton's officers hath done a man to death not half anhour agone; he is an Irishman Captain Hogan by name. "

"Hogan--Hogan?" repeated Crispin, after the manner of one who fumbles inhis memory. "Ah, yes--an Irishman with a grey head and a hot temper. Andhe is dead, you say?"

"Nay, he has done the killing. "

"That I can better understand. 'Tis not the first time, I'll be sworn. "

"But it will be the last, Sir Crispin. "

"Like enough. The King is severe since we crossed the Border. " Then ina brisker tone: "I thank you for bringing me this news, " said he, "and Iregret that in my poor house there be naught I can offer you wherein todrink His Majesty's health ere you proceed upon your search. Give yougood night, sir. " And by drawing back a pace he signified his wish toclose the door and be quit of them. 

"We thought, " faltered the young officer, "that--that perchance youwould assist us by--"

"Assist you!" roared Crispin, with a fine assumption of anger. "Assistyou take a man? Sink me, sir, I would have you know I am a soldier, nota tipstaff!"

The ensign's cheeks grew crimson under the sting of that veiled insult. 

"There are some, Sir Crispin, that have yet another name for you. "

"Like enough--when I am not by, " sneered Crispin. "The world is full offoul tongues in craven heads. But, sirs, the night air is chill and youare come inopportunely, for, as you'll perceive, I was at play. Haplyyou'll suffer me to close the door. "

"A moment, Sir Crispin. We must search this house. He is believed tohave come this way. "

Crispin yawned. "I will spare you the trouble. You may take it from methat he could not be here without my knowledge. I have been in this roomthese two hours past. "

"Twill not suffice, " returned the officer doggedly. "We must satisfyourselves. "

"Satisfy yourselves?" echoed the other, in tones of deep amazement. "What better satisfaction can I afford you than my word? 'Swounds, sirjackanapes, " he added, in a roar that sent the lieutenant back a paceas though he had been struck, "am I to take it that your errand is atrumped-up business to affront me? First you invite me to turn tipstaff, then you add your cursed innuendoes of what people say of me, and nowyou end by doubting me! You must satisfy yourself!" he thundered, waxingfiercer at every word. "Linger another moment on that threshold, andd----n me, sir, I'll give you satisfaction of another flavour! Be off!"

Before that hurricane of passion the ensign recoiled, despite himself. 

"I will appeal to General Montgomery, " he threatened. 

"Appeal to the devil! Had you come hither with your errand in a seemlyfashion you had found my door thrown wide in welcome, and I had receivedyou courteously. As it is, sir, the cause for complaint is on my side, and complain I will. We shall see whether the King permits an oldsoldier who has followed the fortunes of his family these eighteen yearsto be flouted by a malapert bantam of yesterday's brood!"

The subaltern paused in dismay. Some demur there was in the gatheredcrowd. Then the officer fell back a pace, and consulted an elderlytrooper at his elbow. The trooper was of opinion that the fugitive musthave gone farther. Moreover, he could not think, from what Sir Crispinhad said, that it would have been possible for Hogan to have entered thehouse. With this, and realizing that much trouble and possible loss oftime must result from Sir Crispin's obstinacy, did they attempt to forcea way into the house, and bethinking himself, also, maybe, how well thisrascally ruffler stood with Lord Middleton, the ensign determined towithdraw, and to seek elsewhere. 

And so he took his leave with a venomous glance, and a parting threatto bring the matter to the King's ears, upon which Galliard slammed thedoor before he had finished. 

There was a curious smile on Crispin's face as he walked slowly to thetable, and resumed his seat. 

"Master Stewart, " he whispered, as he spread his cards anew, "the comedyis not yet played out. There is a face glued to the window at thismoment, and I make little doubt that for the next hour or so we shall bespied upon. That pretty fellow was born to be a thief-taker. "

The boy turned a glance of sour reproof upon his companion. He had notstirred from his chair while Crispin had been at the door. 

"You lied to them, " he said at last. 

"Sh! Not so loud, sweet youth, " was the answer that lost nothing ofmenace by being subdued. "Tomorrow, if you please, I will account toyou for offending your delicate soul by suggesting a falsehood in yourpresence. To-night we have a man's life to save, and that, I think, iswork enough. Come, Master Stewart, we are being watched. Let us resumeour game. "

His eye, fixed in cold command upon the boy, compelled obedience. And the lad, more out of awe of that glance than out of any desire tocontribute to the saving of Hogan, mutely consented to keep up thispretence. But in his soul he rebelled. He had been reared in anatmosphere of honourable and religious bigotry. Hogan was to him acoarse ruffler; an evil man of the sword; such a man as he abhorred andaccounted a disgrace to any army--particularly to an army launched uponEngland under the auspices of the Solemn League and Covenant. 

Hogan had been guilty of an act of brutality; he had killed a man; andKenneth deemed himself little better, since he assisted in harbouringinstead of discovering him, as he held to be his duty. But 'neath thesuasion of Galliard's inexorable eye he sat limp and docile, vowingto himself that on the morrow he would lay the matter before LordMiddleton, and thus not only endeavour to make amends for his presentguilty silence, but rid himself also of the companionship of thisruffianly Sir Crispin, to whom no doubt a hempen justice would be meted. 

Meanwhile, he sat on and left his companion's occasional salliesunanswered. In the street men stirred and lanthorns gleamed fitfully, whilst ever and anon a face surmounted by a morion would be pressedagainst the leaded panes of the window. 

Thus an hour wore itself out during which poor Hogan sat above, alonewith his anxiety and unsavoury thoughts. 

CHAPTER II. ARCADES AMBO

Towards midnight at last Sir Crispin flung down his cards and rose. Itwas close upon an hour and a half since Hogan's advent. In the streetsthe sounds had gradually died down, and peace seemed to reign againin Penrith. Yet was Sir Crispin cautious--for to be cautious andmistrustful of appearances was the lesson life had taught him. 

"Master Stewart, " said he, "it grows late, and I doubt me you would beabed. Give you good night!"

The lad rose. A moment he paused, hesitating, then--

"To-morrow, Sir Crispin--" he began. But Crispin cut him short. 

"Leave to-morrow till it dawn, my friend. Give you good night. Take oneof those noisome tapers with you, and go. "

In sullen silence the boy took up one of the candle-bearing bottles andpassed out through the door leading to the stairs. 

For a moment Crispin remained standing by the table, and in that momentthe expression of his face was softened. A momentary regret of histreatment of the boy stirred in him. Master Stewart might be a milksop, but Crispin accounted him leastways honest, and had a kindness forhim in spite of all. He crossed to the window, and throwing it wide heleaned out, as if to breathe the cool night air, what time he hummed therefrain of `Rub-a-dub-dub' for the edification of any chance listeners. 

For a half-hour he lingered there, and for all that he used the occasionto let his mind stray over many a theme, his eyes were alert for theleast movement among the shadows of the street. Reassured at last thatthe house was no longer being watched, he drew back, and closed thelattice. 

Upstairs he found the Irishman seated in dejection upon his bed, awaiting him. 

"Soul of my body!" cried Hogan ruefully, "I was never nearer beingafraid in my life. "

Crispin laughed softly for answer, and besought of him the tale of whathad passed. 

"Tis simple enough, faith, " said Hogan coolly. "The landlord of TheAngel hath a daughter maybe 'twas after her he named his inn--who ownsa pair of the most seductive eyes that ever a man saw perdition in. Shehath, moreover, a taste for dalliance, and my brave looks and martialtrappings did for her what her bold eyes had done for me. We werebecoming the sweetest friends, when, like an incarnate fiend, thatloutish clown, her lover, sweeps down upon us, and, with more jealousythan wit, struck me--struck me, Harry Hogan! Soul of my body, think ofit, Cris!" And he grew red with anger at the recollection. "I tookhim by the collar of his mean smock and flung him into the kennel--thefittest bed he ever lay in. Had he remained there it had been wellfor him; but the fool, accounting himself affronted, came up to demandsatisfaction. I gave it him, and plague on it--he's dead!"

"An ugly tale, " was Crispin's sour comment. 

"Ugly, maybe, " returned Hogan, spreading out his palms, "but what choicehad I? The fool came at me, bilbo in hand, and I was forced to draw. '

"But not to slay, Hogan!"

"Twas an accident. Sink me, it was! I sought his sword-arm; but thelight was bad, and my point went through his chest instead. "

For a moment Crispin stood frowning, then his brow cleared, as though hehad put the matter from him. 

"Well, well--since he's dead, there's an end to it. "

"Heaven rest his soul!" muttered the Irishman, crossing himself piously. And with that he dismissed the subject of the great wrong that throughfolly he had wrought--the wanton destruction of a man's life, and thepoisoning of a woman's with a remorse that might be everlasting. 

"It will tax our wits to get you out of Penrith, " said Crispin. Then, turning and looking into the Irishman's great, good-humoured face--"I amsorry you leave us, Hogan, " he added. 

"Not so am I, " quoth Hogan with a shrug. "Such a march as this is littleto my taste. Bah! Charles Stuart or Oliver Cromwell, 'tis all one to me. What care I whether King or Commonwealth prevail? Shall Harry Hogan bethe better or the richer under one than under the other? Oddslife, Cris, I have trailed a pike or handled a sword in well-nigh every army inEurope. I know more of the great art of war than all the King's generalsrolled into one. Think you, then, I can rest content with a miserablecompany of horse when plunder is forbidden, and even our beggarly paydoubtful? Whilst, should things go ill--as well they may, faith, withan army ruled by parsons--the wage will be a swift death on field orgallows, or a lingering one in the plantations, as fell to the lot ofthose poor wretches Noll drove into England after Dunbar. Soul of mybody, it is not thus that I had looked to fare when I took service atPerth. I had looked for plunder, rich and plentiful plunder, accordingto the usages of warfare, as a fitting reward for a toilsome march andthe perils gone through. 

"Thus I know war, and for this have I followed the trade these twentyyears. Instead, we have thirty thousand men, marching to battle as primand orderly as a parcel of acolytes in a Corpus-Christi procession. 'Twas not so bad in Scotland haply because the country holds naughta man may profitably plunder--but since we have crossed the Border, 'slife, they'll hang you if you steal so much as a kiss from a wench inpassing. "

"Why, true, " laughed Crispin, "the Second Charles hath an over-tenderstomach. He will not allow that we are marching through an enemy'scountry; he insists that England is his kingdom, forgetting that he hasyet to conquer it, and--"

"Was it not also his father's kingdom?" broke in the impetuous Hogan. "Yet times are sorely changed since we followed the fortunes of theMartyr. In those days you might help yourself to a capon, a horse, a wench, or any other trifle of the enemy's, without ever a word ofcensure or a question asked. Why, man, it is but two days since HisMajesty had a poor devil hanged at Kendal for laying violent hands upona pullet. Pox on it, Cris, my gorge rises at the thought! When Isaw that wretch strung up, I swore to fall behind at the earliestopportunity, and to-night's affair makes this imperative. "

"And what may your plans be?" asked Crispin. 

"War is my trade, not a diversion, as it is with Wilmot and Buckinghamand the other pretty gentlemen of our train. And since the King's armyis like to yield me no profit, faith, I'll turn me to the Parliament's. If I get out of Penrith with my life, I'll shave my beard and cut myhair to a comely and godly length; don a cuckoldy steeple hat and ablack coat, and carry my sword to Cromwell with a line of text. "

Sir Crispin fell to pondering. Noting this, and imagining that heguessed aright the reason:

"I take it, Cris, " he put in, keenly glancing at the other, "that youare much of my mind?"

"Maybe I am, " replied Crispin carelessly. 

"Why, then, " cried Hogan, "need we part company?"

There was a sudden eagerness in his tone, born of the admiration inwhich this rough soldier of fortune held one whom he accounted hisbetter in that same harsh trade. But Galliard answered coldly:

"You forget, Harry. "

"Not so! Surely on Cromwell's side your object--"

"T'sh! I have well considered. My fortunes are bound up with the King's. In his victory alone lies profit for me; not the profit of pillage, Hogan, but the profit of those broad lands that for nigh upon twentyyears have been in usurping hands. The profit I look for, Hogan, is myrestoration to Castle Marleigh, and of this my only hope lies in therestoration of King Charles. If the King doth not prevail--which Godforfend!--why, then, I can but die. I shall have naught left to hope forfrom life. So you see, good Hogan, " he ended with a regretful smile, "mygoing with you is not to be dreamed of. "

Still the Irishman urged him, and a good half-hour did he devote to it, but in vain. Realizing at last the futility of his endeavours, he sighedand moved uneasily in his chair, whilst the broad, tanned face wasclouded with regret. Crispin saw this, and approaching him, he laid ahand upon his shoulder. 

"I had counted upon your help to clear the Ashburns from Castle Marleighand to aid me in my grim work when the time is ripe. But if you go--"

"Faith, I may aid you yet. Who shall say?" Then of a sudden there creptinto the voice of this hardened pike-trader a note of soft concern. "Think you there be danger to yourself in remaining?" he inquired. 

"Danger? To me?" echoed Crispin. 

"Aye--for having harboured me. That whelp of Montgomery's Foot suspectsyou. "

"Suspects? Am I a man of straw to be overset by a breath of suspicion?"

"There is your lieutenant, Kenneth Stewart. "

"Who has been a party to your escape, and whose only course is thereforesilence, lest he set a noose about his own neck. Come, Harry, " he added, briskly, changing his manner, "the night wears on, and we have yoursafety to think of. "

Hogan rose with a sigh. 

"Give me a horse, " said he, "and by God's grace tomorrow shall find mein Cromwell's camp. Heaven prosper and reward you, Cris. "

"We must find you clothes more fitting than these--a coat more staid andbetter attuned to the Puritan part you are to play. "

"Where have you such a coat?"

"My lieutenant has. He affects the godly black, from a habit taken inthat Presbyterian Scotland of his. "

"But I am twice his bulk!"

"Better a tight coat to your back than a tight rope to your neck, Harry. Wait. "

Taking a taper, he left the room, to return a moment later with the coatthat Kenneth had worn that day, and which he had abstracted from thesleeping lad's chamber. 

"Off with your doublet, " he commanded, and as he spoke he set himself toempty the pocket of Kenneth's garment; a handkerchief and a few papershe found in them, and these he tossed carelessly on the bed. Next heassisted the Irishman to struggle into the stolen coat. 

"May the Lord forgive my sins, " groaned Hogan, as he felt the clothstraining upon his back and cramping his limbs. "May He forgive me, andsee me safely out of Penrith and into Cromwell's camp, and never againwill I resent the resentment of a clown whose sweetheart I have made toofree with. "

"Pluck that feather from your hat, " said Crispin. 

Hogan obeyed him with a sigh. 

"Truly it is written in Scripture that man in his time plays many parts. Who would have thought to see Harry Hogan playing the Puritan?"

"Unless you improve your acquaintance with Scripture you are not like toplay it long, " laughed Crispin, as he surveyed him. "There, man, you'lldo well enough. Your coat is somewhat tight in the back, somewhat shortin the skirt; but neither so tight nor so short but that it may bepreferred to a winding-sheet, and that is the alternative, Harry. "

Hogan replied by roundly cursing the coat and his own lucklessness. Thatdone--and in no measured terms--he pronounced himself ready to set out, whereupon Crispin led the way below once more, and out into a hut thatdid service as a stable. 

By the light of a lanthorn he saddled one of the two nags that stoodthere, and led it into the yard. Opening the door that abutted on toa field beyond, he bade Hogan mount. He held his stirrup for him, andcutting short the Irishman's voluble expressions of gratitude, he gavehim "God speed, " and urged him to use all dispatch in setting as great adistance as possible betwixt himself and Penrith before the dawn. 

CHAPTER III. THE LETTER

It was with a countenance sadly dejected that Crispin returned to hischamber and sate himself wearily upon the bed. With elbows on his kneesand chin in his palms he stared straight before him, the usual steelybrightness of his grey eyes dulled by the despondency that sat upon hisface and drew deep furrows down his fine brow. 

With a sigh he rose at last and idly fingered the papers he had takenfrom the pocket of Kenneth's coat. As he did so his glance was arrestedby the signature at the foot of one. "Gregory Ashburn" was the name heread. 

Ashen grew his cheeks as his eyes fastened upon that name, whilst thehand, to which no peril ever brought a tremor, shook now like an aspen. Feverishly he spread the letter on his knee, and with a glance, fromdull that it had been, grown of a sudden fierce and cruel, he read thecontents. 

DEAR KENNETH, Again I write in the hope that I may prevail upon you to quit Scotlandand your attachment to a king, whose fortunes prosper not, nor canprosper. Cynthia is pining, and if you tarry longer from Castle Marleighshe must perforce think you but a laggard lover. Than this I have nomore powerful argument wherewith to draw you from Perth to Sheringham, but this I think should prevail where others have failed me. We awaityou then, and whilst we wait we daily drink your health. Cynthiacommends herself to your memory as doth my brother, and soon we hope towelcome you at Castle Marleigh. Believe, my dear Kenneth, that whilst Iam, I am yours in affection. 

 GREGORY ASHBURN

Twice Crispin read the letter through. Then with set teeth and strainingeyes he sat lost in thought. 

Here indeed was a strange chance! This boy whom he had met at Perth, and enrolled in his company, was a friend of Ashburn's--the lover ofCynthia. Who might this Cynthia be?

Long and deep were his ponderings upon the unfathomable ways ofFate--for Fate he now believed was here at work to help him, revealingherself by means of this sign even at the very moment when he decriedhis luck. In memory he reviewed his meeting with the lad in the yardof Perth Castle a fortnight ago. Something in the boy's bearing, in hisair, had caught Crispin's eye. He had looked him over, then approached, and bluntly asked his name and on what business he was come there. Theyouth had answered him civilly enough that he was Kenneth Stewartof Bailienochy, and that he was come to offer his sword to the King. Thereupon he had interested himself in the lad's behalf and had gainedhim a lieutenancy in his own company. Why he was attracted to a youthon whom never before had he set eyes was a matter that puzzled him nota little. Now he held, he thought, the explanation of it. It was the wayof Fate. 

This boy was sent into his life by a Heaven that at last showedcompassion for the deep wrongs he had suffered; sent him as a keywherewith, should the need occur, to open him the gates of CastleMarleigh. 

In long strides he paced the chamber, turning the matter over in hismind. Aye, he would use the lad should the need arise. Why scruple? Hadhe ever received aught but disdain and scorn at the hands of Kenneth. 

Day was breaking ere he sought his bed, and already the sun was up whenat length he fell into a troubled sleep, vowing that he would mend hiswild ways and seek to gain the boy's favour against the time when hemight have need of him. 

When later he restored the papers to Kenneth, explaining to what use hehad put the coat, he refrained from questioning him concerning GregoryAshburn. The docility of his mood on that occasion came as a surprise toKenneth, who set it down to Sir Crispin's desire to conciliate him intosilence touching the harbouring of Hogan. In that same connexion Crispinshowed him calmly and clearly that he could not now inform withoutinvolving himself to an equally dangerous extent. And partly throughthe fear of this, partly won over by Crispin's persuasions, the laddetermined to hold his peace. 

Nor had he cause to regret it thereafter, for throughout that tediousmarch he found his roystering companion singularly meek and kindly. Indeed he seemed a different man. His old swagger and roaring blusterdisappeared; he drank less, diced less, blasphemed less, and stormedless than in the old days before the halt at Penrith; but rode, asilent, thoughtful figure, so self-contained and of so godly a mien aswould have rejoiced the heart of the sourest Puritan. The wild tantivyboy had vanished, and the sobriquet of "Tavern Knight" was fast becominga misnomer. 

Kenneth felt drawn more towards him, deeming him a penitent that hadseen at last the error of his ways. And thus things prevailed until thealmost triumphal entry into the city of Worcester on the twenty-third ofAugust. 

CHAPTER IV. AT THE SIGN OF THE MITRE

For a week after the coming of the King to Worcester, Crispin'srelations with Kenneth steadily improved. By an evil chance, however, there befell on the eve of the battle that which renewed with heightenedintensity the enmity which the lad had fostered for him, but whichlately he had almost overcome. 

The scene of this happening--leastways of that which led to it--was TheMitre Inn, in the High Street of Worcester. 

In the common-room one day sat as merry a company of carousers as evergladdened the soul of an old tantivy boy. Youthful ensigns ofLesley's Scottish horse--caring never a fig for the Solemn League andCovenant--rubbed shoulders with beribboned Cavaliers of Lord Talbot'scompany; gay young lairds of Pitscottie's Highlanders, unmindful of theKirk's harsh commandments of sobriety, sat cheek by jowl with rakehellyofficers of Dalzell's Brigade, and pledged the King in many a stoup ofcanary and many a can of stout March ale. 

On every hand spirits ran high and laughter filled the chamber, themirth of some having its source in a neighbour's quip, that of othershaving no source at all save in the wine they had taken. 

At one table sat a gentleman of the name of Faversham, who had ridden onthe previous night in that ill-fated camisado that should haveresulted in the capture of Cromwell at Spetchley, but which, owing to abetrayal--when was a Stuart not betrayed and sold?--miscarried. He wasrelating to the group about him the details of that disaster. 

"Oddslife, gentlemen, " he was exclaiming, "I tell you that, but for thatroaring dog, Sir Crispin Galliard, the whole of Middleton's regiment hadbeen cut to pieces. There we stood on Red Hill, trapped as ever fishin a net, with the whole of Lilburne's men rising out of the ground toenclose and destroy us. A living wall of steel it was, and on every handthe call to surrender. There was dismay in my heart, as I'll swear therewas dismay in the heart of every man of us, and I make little doubt, gentlemen, that with but scant pressing we had thrown down our arms, sodisheartened were we by that ambush. Then of a sudden there arose abovethe clatter of steel and Puritan cries, a loud, clear, defiant shout of'Hey for Cavaliers!'"

"I turned, and there in his stirrups stood that madman Galliard, wavinghis sword and holding his company together with the power of his will, his courage, and his voice. The sight of him was like wine to our blood. 'Into them, gentlemen; follow me!' he roared. And then, with a hurricaneof oaths, he hurled his company against the pike-men. The blow wasirresistible, and above the din of it came that voice of his again: 'Up, Cavaliers! Slash the cuckolds to ribbons, gentlemen!' The cropears gaveway, and like a river that has burst its dam, we poured through theopening in their ranks and headed back for Worcester. "

There was a roar of voices as Faversham ended, and around that table"The Tavern Knight" was for some minutes the only toast. 

Meanwhile half a dozen merry-makers at a table hard by, having drunkthemselves out of all sense of fitness, were occupied in baiting apale-faced lad, sombrely attired, who seemed sadly out of place in thatwild company--indeed, he had been better advised to have avoided it. 

The matter had been set afoot by a pleasantry of Ensign Tyler's, ofMassey's dragoons, with a playful allusion to a letter in a femininehand which Kenneth had let fall, and which Tyler had restored to him. Quip had followed quip until in their jests they transcended all bounds. Livid with passion and unable to endure more, Kenneth had sprung up. 

"Damnation!" he blazed, bringing his clenched hand down upon the table. "One more of your foul jests and he that utters it shall answer to me!"

The suddenness of his action and the fierceness of his tone andgesture--a fierceness so grotesquely ill-attuned to his slender frameand clerkly attire left the company for a moment speechless withamazement. Then a mighty burst of laughter greeted him, above whichsounded the shrill voice of Tyler, who held his sides, and down whosecrimson cheeks two tears of mirth were trickling. 

"Oh, fie, fie, good Master Stewart!" he gasped. "What think you wouldthe reverend elders say to this bellicose attitude and this profanetongue of yours?"

"And what think you would the King say to this drunken poltroonery ofyours?" was the hot unguarded answer. "Poltroonery, I say, " he repeated, embracing the whole company in his glance. 

The laughter died down as Kenneth's insult penetrated their befuddledminds. An instant's lull there was, like the lull in nature thatprecedes a clap of thunder. Then, as with one accord, a dozen of thembore down upon him. 

It was a vile thing they did, perhaps; but then they had drunk deep, andKenneth Stewart counted no friend amongst them. In an instant they hadhim, kicking and biting, on the floor; his doublet was torn rudely open, and from his breast Tyler plucked the letter whose existence had led tothis shameless scene. 

But ere he could so much as unfold it, a voice rang harsh andimperative:

"Hold!"

Pausing, they turned to confront a tall, gaunt man in a leather jerkinand a broad hat decked by goose-quill, who came slowly forward. 

"The Tavern Knight, " cried one, and the shout of "A rouse for the heroof Red Hill!" was taken up on every hand. For despite his sour visageand ungracious ways there was not a roysterer in the Royal army to whomhe was not dear. 

But as he now advanced, the coldness of his bearing and the forbiddingset of his face froze them into silence. 

"Give me that letter, " he demanded sternly of Tyler. 

Taken aback, Tyler hesitated for a second, whilst Crispin waited withhand outstretched. Vainly did he look round for sign or word of help orcounsel. None was afforded him by his fellow-revellers, who one and allhung back in silence. 

Seeing himself thus unsupported, and far from wishing to try conclusionswith Galliard, Tyler with an ill grace surrendered the paper; and, witha pleasant bow and a word of thanks, delivered with never so slighta saturnine smile, Crispin turned on his heel and left the tavern asabruptly as he had entered it. 

The din it was that had attracted him as he passed by on his way to theEpiscopal Palace where a part of his company was on guard duty. Thitherhe now pursued his way, bearing with him the letter which so opportunelyhe had become possessed of, and which he hoped might throw further lightupon Kenneth's relations with the Ashburns. 

But as he reached the palace there was a quick step behind him, and ahand fell upon his arm. He turned. 

"Ah, 'tis you, Kenneth, " he muttered, and would have passed on, but theboy's hand took him by the sleeve. 

"Sir Crispin, " said he, "I came to thank you. "

"I have done nothing to deserve your thanks. Give you good evening. " Andhe made shift to mount the steps when again Kenneth detained him. 

"You are forgetting the letter, Sir Crispin, " he ventured, and he heldout his hand to receive it. 

Galliard saw the gesture, and for a moment it crossed his mind inself-reproach that the part he chose to play was that of a bully. Asecond he hesitated. Should he surrender the letter unread, and fight onwithout the aid of the information it might bring him? Then the thoughtof Ashburn and of his own deep wrongs that cried out for vengeance, overcame and stifled the generous impulse. His manner grew yet morefrozen as he made answer:

"There has been too much ado about this letter to warrant my so lightlyparting with it. First I will satisfy myself that I have been nounconscious abettor of treason. You shall have your letter tomorrow, Master Stewart. "

"Treason!" echoed Kenneth. And before that cold rebuff of Crispin's hismood changed from conciliatory to resentful--resentful towards the fatesthat made him this man's debtor. 

"I assure you, on my honour, " said he, mastering his feelings, "thatthis is but a letter from the lady I hope to make my wife. Assuredly, sir, you will not now insist upon reading it. "

"Assuredly I shall. "

"But, sir--"

"Master Stewart, I am resolved, and were you to talk from now tilldoomsday, you would not turn me from my purpose. So good night to you. "

"Sir Crispin, " cried the boy, his voice quavering with passion, "while Ilive you shall not read that letter!"

"Hoity-toity, sir! What words! What heroics! And yet you would have mebelieve this paper innocent?"

"As innocent as the hand that penned it, and if I so oppose your readingit, it is because thus much I owe her. Believe me, sir, " he added, hisaccents returning to a beseeching key, "when again I swear that it is nomore than such a letter any maid may write her lover. I thought that youhad understood all this when you rescued me from those bullies atThe Mitre. I thought that what you did was a noble and generous deed. Instead--" The lad paused. 

"Continue, sir, " Galliard requested coldly. "Instead?"

"There can be no instead, Sir Crispin. You will not mar so good anaction now. You will give me my letter, will you not?"

Callous though he was, Crispin winced. The breeding of earlier days--sosadly warped, alas!--cried out within him against the lie that hewas acting by pretending to suspect treason in that woman's pothooks. Instincts of gentility and generosity long dead took life again, resuscitated by that call of conscience. He was conquered. 

"There, take your letter, boy, and plague me no more, " he growled, as heheld it out to Kenneth. And without waiting for reply or acknowledgment, he turned on his heel, and entered the palace. But he had yieldedoverlate to leave a good impression and, as Kenneth turned away, it waswith a curse upon Galliard, for whom his detestation seemed to increaseat every step. 

CHAPTER V. AFTER WORCESTER FIELD

The morn of the third of September--that date so propitious to Cromwell, so disastrous to Charles--found Crispin the centre of a company ofgentlemen in battle-harness, assembled at The Mitre Inn. For a toast hegave them "The damnation of all crop-ears. "

"Sirs, " quoth he, "a fair beginning to a fair day. God send the eveningfind us as merry. "

It was not to be his good fortune, however, to be in the earlier workof the day. Until afternoon he was kept within the walls of Worcester, chafing to be where hard knocks were being dealt--with Montgomery atPowick Bridge, or with Pittscottie on Bunn's Hill. But he was forced tohold his mood in curb, and wait until Charles and his advisers shouldelect to make the general attack. 

It came at last, and with it came the disastrous news that Montgomerywas routed, and Pittscottie in full retreat, whilst Dalzell hadsurrendered, and Keith was taken. Then was it that the main body of theRoyal army formed up at the Sidbury Gate, and Crispin found himself inthe centre, which was commanded by the King in person. In the brilliantcharge that followed there was no more conspicuous figure, no voicerang louder in encouragement to the men. For the first time that dayCromwell's Ironsides gave back before the Royalists, who in that fierce, irresistible charge, swept all before them until they had reachedthe battery on Perry Wood, and driven the Roundheads from ithell-to-leather. 

It was a glorious moment, a moment in which the fortunes of the day hungin the balance; the turn of the tide it seemed to them at last. 

Crispin was among the first to reach the guns, and with a great shout of"Hurrah for Cavaliers!" he had cut down two gunners that yet lingered. His cry lacked not an echo, and a deafening cheer broke upon theclamorous air as the Royalists found themselves masters of the position. Up the hill on either side pressed the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl ofDerby to support the King. It but remained for Lesley's Scottish horseto follow and complete the rout of the Parliamentarian forces. Had theymoved at that supreme moment who shall say what had been the issue ofWorcester field? But they never stirred, and the Royalists waiting onPerry Wood cursed Lesley for a foul traitor who had sold his King. 

With bitterness did they then realize that their great effort was to bebarren, their gallant charge in vain. Unsupported, their position grewfast untenable. 

And presently, when Cromwell had gathered his scattered Ironsides, thatgallant host was driven fighting, down the hill and back to the shelterof Worcester. With the Roundheads pressing hotly upon them they gainedat last the Sidbury Gate, but only to find that an overset ammunitionwagon blocked the entrance. In this plight, and without attemptingto move it, they faced about to make a last stand against the Puritanonslaught. 

Charles had flung himself from his charger and climbed the obstruction, and in this he was presently followed by others, amongst whom wasCrispin. 

In the High Street Galliard came upon the King, mounted on a freshhorse, addressing a Scottish regiment of foot. The soldiers had throwndown their arms and stood sullenly before him, refusing to obey hiscommand to take them up again and help him attempt, even at that latehour, to retrieve the fortunes of the day. Crispin looked on in scornand loathing. His passions awakened at the sight of Lesley's inactionneeded but this last breath to fan it into a very blaze of wrath. Andwhat he said to them touching themselves, their country, and the KirkCommittee that had made sheep of them, was so bitter and contemptuousthat none but men in the most parlous and pitiable of conditions couldhave suffered it. 

He was still hurling vituperations at them when Colonel Pride witha troop of Parliamentarian horse--having completely overcome theresistance at the Sidbury Gate--rode into the town. At the news of this, Crispin made a last appeal to the infantry. 

"Afoot, you Scottish curs!" he thundered. "Would you rather be cut topieces as you stand? Up, you dogs, and since you know not how to live, die at least without shame!"

But in vain did he rail. In sullen quiet they remained, their weapons onthe ground before them. And then, as Crispin was turning away to see tohis own safety, the King rode up again, and again he sought to revivethe courage that was dead in those Scottish hearts. If they would notstand by him, he cried at last, let them slay him there, sooner thanthat he should be taken captive to perish on the scaffold. 

While he was still urging them, Crispin unceremoniously seized hisbridle. 

"Will you stand here until you are taken, sire?" he cried. "Leave them, and look to your safety. "

Charles turned a wondering eye upon the resolute, battle-grimed face ofthe man that thus addressed him. A faint, sad smile parted his lips. 

"You are right, sir, " he made answer. "Attend me. " And turning about herode down a side street with Galliard following closely in his wake. 

With the intention of doffing his armour and changing his apparel, hemade for the house in New Street where he had been residing. As theydrew up before the door, Crispin, chancing to look over his shoulder, rapped out an oath. 

"Hasten, sire, " he exclaimed, "here is a portion of Colonel's Pride'stroop. "

The King looked round, and at sight of the Parliamentarians, "It isended, " he muttered despairingly. But already Crispin had sprung fromhis horse. 

"Dismount, sire, " he roared, and he assisted him so vigorously as toappear to drag him out of the saddle. 

"Which way?" demanded Charles, looking helplessly from left to right. "Which way?"

But Crispin's quick mind had already shaped a plan. Seizing the royalarm--for who in such straits would deal ceremoniously?--he thrust theKing across the threshold, and, following, closed the door and shot itsonly bolt. But the shout set up by the Puritans announced to them thattheir movement had been detected. 

The King turned upon Sir Crispin, and in the half-light of the passagewherein they stood Galliard made out the frown that bent the royalbrows. 

"And now?" demanded Charles, a note almost of reproach in his voice. 

"And now begone, sire, " returned the knight. "Begone ere they come. "

"Begone?" echoed Charles, in amazement. "But whither, sir? Whither andhow?"

His last words were almost drowned in the din without, as the Roundheadspulled up before the house. 

"By the back, sire, " was the impatient answer. "Through door orwindow--as best you can. The back must overlook the Corn-Market; that isyour way. But hasten--in God's name hasten!--ere they bethink them of itand cut off your retreat. "

As he spoke a violent blow shook the door. 

"Quick, Your Majesty, " he implored, in a frenzy. 

Charles moved to depart, then paused. "But you, sir? Do you not comewith me?"

Crispin stamped his foot, and turned a face livid with impatience uponhis King. In that moment all distinction of rank lay forgotten. 

"I must remain, " he answered, speaking quickly. "That crazy door willnot hold for a second once a stout man sets his shoulder to it. Afterthe door they will find me, and for your sake I trust I may prove ofstouter stuff. Fare you well, sire, " he ended in a softer tone. "Godguard Your Majesty and send you happier days. "

And, bending his knee, Crispin brushed the royal hand with his hot lips. 

A shower of blows clattered upon the timbers of the door, and one ofits panels was splintered by a musket-shot. Charles saw it, and with amuttered word that was not caught by Crispin, he obeyed the knight, andfled. 

Scarce had he disappeared down that narrow passage, when the door gaveway completely and with a mighty crash fell in. Over the ruins of itsprang a young Puritan-scarce more than a boy--shouting: "The Lord ofHosts!"

But ere he had taken three strides the point of Crispin's tuck-swordgave him pause. 

"Halt! You cannot pass this way. "

"Back, son of Moab!" was the Roundhead's retort. "Hinder me not, at yourperil. "

Behind him, in the doorway, pressed others, who cried out to him to cutdown the Amalekite that stood between them and the young man CharlesStuart. But Crispin laughed grimly for answer, and kept the officer incheck with his point. 

"Back, or I cut you down, " threatened the Roundhead. "I am seeking themalignant Stuart. "

"If by those blasphemous words you mean his sacred Majesty, learn thathe is where you will never be--in God's keeping. "

"Presumptuous hound, " stormed the lad, "giveway!"

Their swords met, and for a moment they ground one against the other;then Crispin's blade darted out, swift as a lightning flash, and tookhis opponent in the throat. 

"You would have it so, rash fool, " he deprecated. 

The boy hurtled back into the arms of those behind, and as he fell hedropped his rapier, which rolled almost to Crispin's feet. The knightstooped, and when again he stood erect, confronting the rebels in thatnarrow passage, he held a sword in either hand. 

There was a momentary pause in the onslaught, then to his dismay Crispinsaw the barrel of a musket pointed at him over the shoulder of one ofhis foremost assailants. He set his teeth for what was to come, andbraced himself with the hope that the King might already have made goodhis escape. 

The end was at hand, he thought, and a fitting end, since his last hopeof redress was gone-destroyed by that fatal day's defeat. 

But of a sudden a cry rang out in a voice wherein rage and anguishwere blended fearfully, and simultaneously the musket barrel was dashedaside. 

"Take him alive!" was the cry of that voice. "Take him alive!" It wasColonel Pride himself, who having pushed his way forward, now beheld thebleeding body of the youth Crispin had slain. "Take him alive!" roaredthe old man. Then his voice changing to one of exquisite agony--"My son, my boy, " he moaned. 

At a glance Crispin caught the situation; but the old Puritan's griefleft him unmoved. 

"You must have me alive?" he laughed grimly. "Gadslife, but the honouris like to cost you dear. Well, sirs? Who will be next to court thedistinction of dying by the sword of a gentleman?" he mocked them. "Comeon, you sons of dogs!"

His answer was an angry growl, and straightway two men sprang forward. More than two could not attack him at once by virtue of the narrownessof the passage. Again steel clashed on steel. Crispin--lithe as apanther crouched low, and took one of their swords on each of his. 

A disengage and a double he foiled with ease, then by a turn of thewrist he held for a second one opponent's blade; and before the fellowcould disengage again, he had brought his right-hand sword across, andstabbed him in the neck. Simultaneously his other opponent had rushedin and thrust. It was a risk Crispin was forced to take, trusting tohis armour to protect him. It did him the service he hoped from it; thetrooper's sword glanced harmlessly aside, whilst the fellow himself, overbalanced by the fury of his onslaught, staggered helplessly forward. Ere he could recover, Crispin had spitted him from side to side betwixtthe straps that held his back and breast together. 

As the two men went down, one after the other, the watching troopers setup a shout of rage, and pressed forward in a body. But the Tavern Knightstood his ground, and his points danced dangerously before the eyes ofthe two foremost. Alarmed, they shouted to those behind to givethem room to handle their swords; but too late. Crispin had seen theadvantage, and taken it. Twice he had thrust, and another two sankbleeding to the ground. 

At that there came a pause, and somewhere in the street a knot of themexpostulated with Colonel Pride, and begged to be allowed to pick offthat murderous malignant with their pistols. But the grief-strickenfather was obdurate. He would have the Amalekite alive that he mightcause him to die a hundred deaths in one. 

And so two more were sent in to try conclusions with the indomitableGalliard. They went to work more warily. He on the left parriedCrispin's stroke, then knocking up the knight's blade, he rushed in andseized his wrist, shouting to those behind to follow up. But even ashe did so, Crispin sent back his other antagonist, howling and writhingwith the pain of a transfixed sword-arm, and turned his full attentionupon the foe that clung to him. Not a second did he waste in thought. Tohave done so would have been fatal. Instinctively he knew that whilsthe shortened his blade, others would rush in; so, turning his wrist, hecaught the man a crushing blow full in the face with the pommel of hisdisengaged sword. 

Fulminated by that terrific stroke, the man reeled back into the arms ofanother who advanced. 

Again there fell a pause. Then silently a Roundhead charged Sir Crispinwith a pike. He leapt nimbly aside, and the murderous lunge shot pasthim; as he did so he dropped his left-hand sword and caught at thehalberd. Exerting his whole strength in a mighty pull, he broughtthe fellow that wielded it toppling forward, and received him on hisoutstretched blade. 

Covered with blood--the blood of others--Crispin stood before them now. He was breathing hard and sweating at every pore, but still grim anddefiant. His strength, he realized, was ebbing fast. Yet he shookhimself, and asked them with a gibing laugh did they not think that theyhad better shoot him. 

The Roundheads paused again. The fight had lasted but a few moments, and already five of them were stretched upon the ground, and a sixthdisabled. There was something in the Tavern Knight's attitude andterrific, blood-bespattered appearance that deterred them. From outof his powder-blackened face his eyes flashed fiercely, and a mockingdiabolical smile played round the corners of his mouth. What mannerof man, they asked themselves, was this who could laugh in such anextremity? Superstition quickened their alarm as they gazed uponhis undaunted front, and told themselves this was no man they foughtagainst, but the foul fiend himself. 

"Well, sirs, " he mocked them presently. "How long am I to await yourpleasure?"

They snarled for answer, yet hung back until Colonel Pride's voiceshook them into action. In a body they charged him now, so suddenly andviolently that he was forced to give way. Cunningly did he ply his swordbefore them, but ineffectually. They had adopted fresh tactics, andengaging his blade they acted cautiously and defensively, advancingsteadily, and compelling him to fall back. 

Sir Crispin guessed their scheme at last, and vainly did he try to holdhis ground; his retreat slackened perhaps, but it was still a retreat, and their defensive action gave him no opening. Vainly, yet by everytrick of fence he was master of, did he seek to lure the two foremostinto attacking him; stolidly they pursued the adopted plan, and steadilythey impelled him backward. 

At last he reached the staircase, and he realized that did he allowhimself to go farther he was lost irretrievably. Yet farther was hedriven; despite the strenuous efforts he put forth, until on his rightthere was room for a man to slip on to the stairs and take him in theflank. Twice one of his opponents essayed it, and twice did Galliard'sdeadly point repel him. But at the third attempt the man got through, another stepped into his place in front, and thus from two, Crispin'simmediate assailants became increased to three. 

He realized that the end was at hand, and wildly did he lay about him, but to no purpose. And presently, he who had gained the stairs leapedsuddenly upon him sideways, and clung to his swordarm. Before he couldmake a move to shake himself free, the two that faced him had caught athis other arm. 

Like one possessed he struggled then, for the sheer lust of striving;but they that held him gripped effectively. 

Thrice they bore him struggling to the ground, and thrice he rose againand sought to shake them from him as a bull shakes off a pack of dogs. But they held fast, and again they forced him down; others sprang totheir aid, and the Tavern Knight could rise no more. 

"Disarm the dog!" cried Pride. "Disarm and truss him hand and foot. "

"Sirs, you need not, " he answered, gasping. "I yield me. Take my sword. I'll do your bidding. "

The fight was fought and lost, but it had been a great Homeric struggle, and he rejoiced almost that upon so worthy a scene of his life was thecurtain to fall, and again to hope that, thanks to the stand he hadmade, the King should have succeeded in effecting his escape. 

CHAPTER VI. COMPANIONS IN MISFORTUNE

Through the streets of Worcester the Roundheads dragged Sir Crispin, andfor all that he was as hard and callous a man as any that ever buckledon a cuirass, the horrors that in going he beheld caused him more thanonce to shudder. 

The place was become a shambles, and the very kennels ran with blood. The Royalist defeat was by now complete, and Cromwell's fanatic butchersoverran the town, vying to outdo one another in savage crueltyand murder. Houses were being broken into and plundered, and theirinmates--resisting or unresisting; armed or unarmed; men, women andchildren alike were pitilessly being put to the sword. Charged was theair of Worcester with the din of that fierce massacre. The crashing ofshivered timbers, as doors were beaten in, mingled with the clatter andgrind of sword on sword, the crack of musket and pistol, the clank ofarmour, and the stamping of men and horses in that troubled hour. 

And above all rang out the fierce, raucous blasphemy of the slayers, and the shrieks of agony, the groans, the prayers, and curses of theirvictims. 

All this Sir Crispin saw and heard, and in the misery of it all, hefor the while forgot his own sorry condition, and left unheeded thepike-butt wherewith the Puritan at his heels was urging him along. 

They paused at length in a quarter unknown to him before a tolerablylarge house. Its doors hung wide, and across the threshold, in and out, moved two continuous streams of officers and men. 

A while Crispin and his captors stood in the spacious hall; then theyushered him roughly into one of the abutting rooms. Here he was broughtface to face with a man of middle height, red and coarse of countenanceand large of nose, who stood fully armed in the centre of the chamber. His head was uncovered, and on the table at his side stood the morion hehad doffed. He looked up as they entered, and for a few seconds restedhis glance sourly upon the lank, bold-eyed prisoner, who coldly returnedhis stare. 

"Whom have we here?" he inquired at length, his scrutiny having told himnothing. 

"One whose offence is too heinous to have earned him a soldier's death, my lord, " answered Pride. 

"Therein you lie, you damned rebel!" cried Crispin. "If accuse you must, announce the truth. Tell Master Cromwell"--for he had guessed the man'sidentity--"that single-handed I held my own against you and a score ofyou curs, and that not until I had cut down seven of them was I taken. Tell him that, master psalm-singer, and let him judge whether you liedor not. Tell him, too, that you, who--"

"Have done!" cried Cromwell at length, stamping his foot. "Peace, orI'll have you gagged. Now, Colonel, let us hear your accusation. "

At great length, and with endless interlarding of proverbs did Priderelate how this impious malignant had been the means of the young man, Charles Stuart, making good his escape when otherwise he must havefallen into their hands. He accused him also of the murder of his sonand of four other stout, God-fearing troopers, and urged Cromwell to lethim deal with the malignant as he deserved. 

The Lord General's answer took expression in a form that was littlepuritanical. Then, checking himself:

"He is the second they have brought me within ten minutes charged withthe same offence, " said he. "The other one is a young fool who gaveCharles Stuart his horse at Saint Martin's Gate. But for him again theyoung man had been taken. "

"So he has escaped!" cried Crispin. "Now, God be praised!"

Cromwell stared at him blankly for a moment, then:

"You will do well, sir, " he muttered sourly, "to address the Lord onyour own behalf. As for that young man of Baal, your master, rejoicenot yet in his escape. By the same crowning mercy in which the Lord hathvouchsafed us victory to-day shall He also deliver the malignant youthinto my hands. For your share in retarding his capture your life, sir, shall pay forfeit. You shall hang at daybreak together with that othermalignant who assisted Charles at the Saint Martin's Gate. "

"I shall at least hang in good company, " said Crispin pleasantly, "andfor that, sir, I give you thanks. "

"You will pass the night with that other fool, " Cromwell continued, without heeding the interruption, "and I pray that you may spend it insuch meditation as shall fit you for your end. Take him away. "

"But, my lord, " exclaimed Pride, advancing. 

"What now?"

Crispin caught not his answer, but his half-whispered words were earnestand pleading. Cromwell shook his head. 

"I cannot sanction it. Let it satisfy you that he dies. I condole withyou in your bereavement, but it is the fortune of war. Let the thoughtthat your son died in a godly cause be of comfort to you. Bear in mind, Colonel Pride, that Abraham hesitated not to offer up his child to theLord. And so, fare you well. "

Colonel Pride's face worked oddly, and his eyes rested for a secondupon the stern, unmoved figure of the Tavern Knight in malice andvindictiveness. Then, shrugging his shoulders in token of unwillingresignation, he withdrew, whilst Crispin was led out. 

In the hall again they kept him waiting for some moments, until atlength an officer came up, and bidding him follow, led the way to theguardroom. Here they stripped him of his back-and-breast, and when thatwas done the officer again led the way, and Crispin followed between twotroopers. They made him mount three flights of stairs, and hurried himalong a passage to a door by which a soldier stood mounting guard. Ata word from the officer the sentry turned, and unfastening the heavybolts, he opened the door. Roughly the officer bade Sir Crispin enter, and stood aside that he might pass. 

Crispin obeyed him silently, and crossed the threshold to find himselfwithin a mean, gloomy chamber, and to hear the heavy door closed andmade fast again behind him. His stout heart sank a little as he realizedthat that closed door shut out to him the world for ever; but once againwould he cross that threshold, and that would be the preface to thecrossing of the greater threshold of eternity. 

Then something stirred in one of that room's dark corners, and hestarted, to see that he was not alone, remembering that Cromwell hadsaid he was to have a companion in his last hours. 

"Who are you?" came a dull voice--a voice that was eloquent of misery. 

"Master Stewart!" he exclaimed, recognizing his companion. "So it wasyou gave the King your horse at the Saint Martin's Gate! May Heavenreward you. Gadswounds, " he added, "I had little thought to meet youagain this side the grave. "

"Would to Heaven you had not!" was the doleful answer. "What make youhere?"

"By your good leave and with your help I'll make as merry as a man maywhose sands are all but run. The Lord General--whom the devil roast inhis time will make a pendulum of me at daybreak, and gives me the nightin which to prepare. "

The lad came forward into the light, and eyed Sir Crispin sorrowfully. 

"We are companions in misfortune, then. "

"Were we ever companions in aught else? Come, sir, be of better cheer. Since it is to be our last night in this poor world, let us spend it aspleasantly as may be. "

"Pleasantly?"

"Twill clearly be difficult, " answered Crispin, with a laugh. "Were wein Christian hands they'd not deny us a black jack over which to relishour last jest, and to warm us against the night air, which must bechill in this garret. But these crop-ears... " He paused to peer into thepitcher on the table. "Water! Pah! A scurvy lot, these psalm-mongers!"

"Merciful Heaven! Have you no thought for your end?"

"Every thought, good youth, every thought, and I would fain prepare mefor the morning's dance in a more jovial and hearty fashion than OldNoll will afford me--damn him!"

Kenneth drew back in horror. His old dislike for Crispin was all arousedby this indecent flippancy at such a time. Just then the thought ofspending the night in his company almost effaced the horror of thegallows whereof he had been a prey. 

Noting the movement, Crispin laughed disdainfully, and walked towardsthe window. It was a small opening, by which two iron bars, setcrosswise, defied escape. Moreover, as Crispin looked out, he realizedthat a more effective barrier lay in the height of the window itself. The house overlooked the river on that side; it was built upon anembankment some thirty feet high; around this, at the base of theedifice, and some forty feet below the window, ran a narrow pathwayprotected by an iron railing. But so narrow was it, that had a mansprung from the casement of Crispin's prison, it was odds he would havefallen into the river some seventy feet below. Crispin turned away witha sigh. He had approached the window almost in hope; he quitted it inabsolute despair. 

"Ah, well, " said he, "we will hang, and there's the end of it. "

Kenneth had resumed his seat in the corner, and, wrapped in his cloak, he sat steeped in meditation, his comely young face seared with lines ofpain. As Crispin looked upon him then, his heart softened and wentout to the lad--went out as it had done on the night when first he hadbeheld him in the courtyard of Perth Castle. 

He recalled the details of that meeting; he remembered the sympathythat had drawn him to the boy, and how Kenneth had at first appeared toreciprocate that feeling, until he came to know him for the rakehelly, godless ruffler that he was. He thought of the gulf that gradually hadopened up between them. The lad was righteous and God-fearing, truthfuland sober, filled with stern ideals by which he sought to shapehis life. He had taxed Crispin with his dissoluteness, and Crispin, despising him for a milksop, had returned to his disgust with mockery, and had found a fiendish pleasure in arousing that disgust at everyturn. 

To-night, as Crispin eyed the youth, and remembered that at dawn he wasto die in his company, he realized that he had used him ill, that hisbehaviour towards him had been that of the dissolute ruffler he wasbecome, rather than of the gentleman he had once accounted himself. 

"Kenneth, " he said at length, and his voice bore so unusually mild aring that the lad looked up in surprise. "I have heard tell that itis no uncommon thing for men upon the threshold of eternity to seek torepair some of the evil they may have done in life. "

Kenneth shuddered. Crispin's words reminded him again of his approachingend. The ruffler paused a moment, as if awaiting a reply or a word ofencouragement. Then, as none came, he continued:

"I am not one of your repentant sinners, Kenneth. I have lived mylife--God, what a life!--and as I have lived I shall die, unflinchingand unchanged. Dare one to presume that a few hours spent in whiningprayers shall atone for years of reckless dissoluteness? 'Tis adoctrine of cravens, who, having lacked in life the strength to live asconscience bade them, lack in death the courage to stand by that life'sdeeds. I am no such traitor to myself. If my life has been vile mytemptations have been sore, and the rest is in God's hands. But in mycourse I have sinned against many men; many a tall fellow's life haveI wantonly wrecked; some, indeed, I have even taken in wantonness oranger. They are not by, nor, were they, could I now make amends. But youat least are here, and what little reparation may lie in asking pardonI can make. When I first saw you at Perth it was my wish to make you myfriend--a feeling I have not had these twenty years towards any man. I failed. How else could it have been? The dove may not nest with thecarrion bird. "

"Say no more, sir, " cried Kenneth, genuinely moved, and still moreamazed by this curious humility in one whom he had never known otherthan arrogant and mocking. "I beseech you, say no more. For whattrifling wrongs you may have done me I forgive you as freely as I wouldbe forgiven. Is it not written that it shall be so?" And he held out hishand. 

"A little more I must say, Kenneth, " answered the other, leaving theoutstretched hand unheeded. "The feeling that was born in me towards youat Perth Castle is on me again. I seek not to account for it. Perchanceit springs from my recognition of the difference betwixt us; perchance Isee in you a reflection of what once I was myself--honourable and true. But let that be. The sun is setting over yonder, and you and I willbehold it no more. That to me is a small thing. I am weary. Hope isdead; and when that is dead what does it signify that the body die also?Yet in these last hours that we shall spend together I would at leasthave your esteem. I would have you forget my past harshness and thewrongs that I may have done you down to that miserable affair of yoursweetheart's letter, yesterday. I would have you realize that if I amvile, I am but such as a vile world hath made me. And tomorrow when wego forth together, I would have you see in me at least a man in whosecompany you are not ashamed to die. "

Again the lad shuddered. 

"Shall I tell you my story, Kenneth? I have a strong desire to goover this poor life of mine again in memory, and by giving my thoughtsutterance it may be that they will take more vivid shape. For the restmy tale may wile away a little of the time that's left, and when youhave heard me you shall judge me, Kenneth. What say you?"

Despite the parlous condition whereunto the fear of the morrow hadreduced him, this new tone of Galliard's so wrought upon him then thathe was almost eager in his request that Sir Crispin should unfold hisstory. And this the Tavern Knight then set himself to do. 

CHAPTER VII. THE TAVERN KNIGHT'S STORY

Sir Crispin walked from the window by which he had been standing, to therough bed, and flung himself full length upon it. The only chair thatdismal room contained was occupied by Kenneth. Galliard heaved a sigh ofphysical satisfaction. 

"Fore George, I knew not I was so tired, " he murmured. And with that helapsed for some moments into silence, his brows contracted in the frownof one who collects his thoughts. At length he began, speaking incalm, unemotional tones that held perchance deeper pathos than a morepassionate utterance could have endowed them with:

"Long ago--twenty years ago--I was, as I have said, an honourable lad, to whom the world was a fair garden, a place of rosebuds, fragrantwith hope. Those, Kenneth, were my illusions. They are the illusions ofyouth; they are youth itself, for when our illusions are gone we areno longer young no matter what years we count. Keep your illusions, Kenneth; treasure them, hoard them jealously for as long as you may. "

"I dare swear, sir, " answered the lad, with bitter humour, "that suchillusions as I have I shall treasure all my life. You forget, SirCrispin. "

"'Slife, I had indeed forgotten. For the moment I had gone back twentyyears, and to-morrow was none so near. " He laughed softly, as though hislapse of memory amused him. Then he resumed:

"I was the only son, Kenneth, of the noblest gentleman that everlived--the heir to an ancient, honoured name, and to a castle as proudand lands as fair and broad as any in England. 

"They lie who say that from the dawn we may foretell the day. Never wasthere a brighter dawn than that of my life; never a day so wasted; neveran evening so dark. But let that be. 

"Our lands were touched upon the northern side by those of a house withwhich we had been at feud for two hundred years and more. Puritans theywere, stern and haughty in their ungodly righteousness. They held usdissolute because we enjoyed the life that God had given us, and there Iam told the hatred first began. 

"When I was a lad of your years, Kenneth, the hall--ours was the castle, theirs the hall--was occupied by two young sparks who made little shiftto keep up the pious reputation of their house. They dwelt there withtheir mother--a woman too weak to check their ways, and holding, mayhap, herself, views not altogether puritanical. They discarded the soberblack their forbears had worn for generations, and donned gay Cavaliergarments. They let their love-locks grow; set plumes in their castorsand jewels in their ears; they drank deep, ruffled it with the boldestand decked their utterance with great oaths--for to none doth blasphemycome more readily than to lips that in youth have been overmuch shapedin unwilling prayer. 

"Me they avoided as they would a plague, and when at times we met, oursalutations were grave as those of, men on the point of crossing swords. I despised them for their coarse, ruffling apostasy more than evermy father had despised their father for a bigot, and they guessing orknowing by instinct what was in my mind held me in deeper rancour eventhan their ancestors had done mine. And more galling still and yet asharper spur to their hatred did those whelps find in the realizationthat all the countryside held, as it had held for ages, us to be theirbetters. A hard blow to their pride was that, but their revenge was notlong in coming. 

"It chanced they had a cousin--a maid as sweet and fair and pure as theywere hideous and foul. We met in the meads--she and I. Spring was thetime--God! It seems but yesterday!--and each in our bearing towards theother forgot the traditions of the names we bore. And as at first we hadmet by chance, so did we meet later by contrivance, not once or twice, but many times. God, how sweet she was! How sweet was all the world! Howsweet it was to live and to be young! We loved. How else could ithave been? What to us were traditions, what to us the hatred that forcenturies had held our families asunder? In us it lay to set aside allthat. 

"And so I sought my father. He cursed me at first for an unnatural sonwho left unheeded the dictates of our blood. But anon, when on myknees I had urged my cause with all the eloquent fervour that is butof youth--youth that loves--my father cursed no more. His thoughts wentback maybe to the days of his own youth, and he bade me rise and goa-wooing as I listed. Nay, more than that he did. The first of our namewas he out of ten generations to set foot across the threshold of thehall; he went on my behalf to sue for their cousin's hand. 

"Then was their hour. To them that had been taught the humiliatinglesson that we were their betters, one of us came suing. They from whomthe countryside looked for silence when one of us spoke, had it in theirhands at length to say us nay. And they said it. What answer my fathermade them, Kenneth, I know not, but very white was his face when I methim on the castle steps on his return. In burning words he told me ofthe insult they had put upon him, then silently he pointed to the Toledothat two years before he had brought me out of Spain, and left me. ButI had understood. Softly I unsheathed that virgin blade and read theSpanish inscription, that through my tears of rage and shame seemedblurred; a proud inscription was it, instinct with the punctilioof proud Spain--'Draw me not without motive, sheathe me not withouthonour. ' Motive there was and to spare; honour I swore there should be;and with that oath, and that brave sword girt to me, I set out to myfirst combat. "

Sir Crispin paused and a sigh escaped him, followed by a laugh ofbitterness. 

"I lost that sword years ago, " said he musingly. "The sword and I havebeen close friends in life, but my companion has been a blade of coarsermake, carrying no inscriptions to prick at a man's conscience and make acraven of him. "

He laughed again, and again he fell a-musing, till Kenneth's voicearoused him. 

"Your story, sir. "

Twilight shadows were gathering in their garret, and as he turned hisface towards the youth, he was unable to make out his features; buthis tone had been eager, and Crispin noted that he sat with head bentforward and that his eyes shone feverishly. 

"It interests you, eh? Ah, well--hot foot I went to the hall, and withburning words I called upon those dogs to render satisfaction for thedishonour they had put upon my house. Will you believe, Kenneth, thatthey denied me? They sheltered their craven lives behind a shield ofmock valour. They would not fight a boy, they said, and bade me get mybeard grown when haply they would give ear to my grievance. 

"And so, a shame and rage a hundredfold more bitter than that which Ihad borne thither did I carry thence. My father bade me treasure up thememory of it against the time when my riper years should compel them toattend me, and this, by my every hope of heaven, I swore to do. He bademe further efface for ever from my mind all thought or hope of unionwith their cousin, and though I made him no answer at the time, yet inmy heart I promised to obey him in that, too. But I was young--scarcetwenty. A week without sight of my mistress and I grew sick withdespair. Then at length I came upon her, pale and tearful, one evening, and in an agony of passion and hopelessness I flung myself at her feet, and implored her to keep true to me and wait, and she, poor maid, to herundoing swore that she would. You are yourself a lover, Kenneth, and youmay guess something of the impatience that anon beset me. How could Iwait? I asked her this. 

"Some fifty miles from the castle there was a little farm, in the veryheart of the country, which had been left me by a sister of my mother's. Thither I now implored her to repair with me. I would find a priest towed us, and there we should live a while in happiness, in solitude, andin love. An alluring picture did I draw with all a lover's cunning, andto the charms of it she fell a victim. We fled three days later. 

"We were wed in the village that pays allegiance to the castle, and thereafter we travelled swiftly and undisturbed to that littlehomestead. There in solitude, with but two servants--a man and a maidwhom I could trust--we lived and loved, and for a season, brief as allhappiness is doomed to be, we were happy. Her cousins had no knowledgeof that farm of mine, and though they searched the country for manya mile around, they searched in vain. My father knew--as I learnedafterwards--but deeming that what was done might not be undone, he heldhis peace. In the following spring a babe was born to us, and our blissmade heaven of that cottage. 

"Twas a month or so after the birth of our child that the blowdescended. I was away, enjoying alone the pleasures of the chase; my manwas gone a journey to the nearest town, whence he would not return untilthe morrow. Oft have I cursed the folly that led me to take my gun andgo forth into the woods, leaving no protector for my wife but one weakwoman. 

"I returned earlier than I had thought to do, led mayhap by some angelthat sought to have me back in time. But I came too late. At my gateI found two freshly ridden horses tethered, and it was with a dullforeboding in my heart that I sprang through the open door. Within--OGod, the anguish of it!--stretched on the floor I beheld my love, agaping sword-wound in her side, and the ground all bloody about her. For a moment I stood dumb in the spell of that horror, then a movementbeyond, against the wall, aroused me, and I beheld her murdererscowering there, one with a naked sword in his hand. 

"In that fell hour, Kenneth, my whole nature changed, and one who hadever been gentle was transformed into the violent, passionate man thatyou have known. As my eye encountered then her cousins, my blood seemedon the instant curdled in my veins; my teeth were set hard; my nervesand sinews knotted; my hands instinctively shifted to the barrel of myfowling-piece and clutched it with the fierceness that was in me--thefierceness of the beast about to spring upon those that have brought itto bay. 

"For a moment I stood swaying there, my eyes upon them, and holdingtheir craven glances fascinated. Then with a roar I leapt forward, thestock of my fowling-piece swung high above my head. And, as God lives, Kenneth, I had sent them straight to hell ere they could have raised ahand or made a cry to stay me. But as I sprang my foot slipped in theblood of my beloved, and in my fall I came close to her where she lay. The fowling-piece had escaped my grasp and crashed against the wall. 

"I scarce knew what I did, but as I lay beside her it came to me that Idid not wish to rise again--that already I had lived overlong. It cameto me that, seeing me fallen, haply those cowards would seize the chanceto make an end of me as I lay. I wished it so in that moment's frenzy, for I made no attempt to rise or to defend myself; instead I set my armsabout my poor murdered love, and against her cold cheek I set my facethat was well-nigh as cold. 

"And thus I lay, nor did they keep me long. A sword was passed throughme from back to breast, whilst he who did it cursed me with a fouloath. The room grew dim; methought it swayed and that the walls weretottering; there was a buzz of sound in my ears, then a piercing cry ina baby voice. At the sound of it I vaguely wished for the strength torise. As in the distance, I heard one of those butchers cry, "Haste, man; slit me that squalling bastard's throat!" And then I must haveswooned. "

Kenneth shuddered. 

"My God, how horrible!" he cried. "But you were avenged, Sir Crispin, "he added eagerly; "you were avenged?"

"When I regained consciousness, " Crispin continued, as if he had notheard Kenneth's exclamation, "the cottage was in flames, set alight bythem to burn the evidence of their foul deed. What I did I know not. Ihave tried to urge my memory along from the point of my awakening, butin vain. By what miracle I crawled forth, I cannot tell; but in themorning I was found by my man lying prone in the garden, half a dozenpaces from the blackened ruins of the cottage, as near death as man maygo and live. 

"God willed that I should not die, but it was close upon a year beforeI was restored to any semblance of my former self, and then I was sochanged that I was hardly to be recognized as that same joyous, vigorouslad, who had set out, fowling-piece on shoulder, one fine morning a yearagone. There was grey in my hair, as much as there is now, though I wasbut twenty-one; my face was seared and marked as that of a man who hadlived twice my years. It was to my faithful servant that I owed my life, though I ask myself to-night whether I have cause for gratitude towardshim on that score. 

"So soon as I had regained sufficient strength, I went secretly home, wishing that men might continue to believe me dead. My father I foundmuch aged by grief, but he was kind and tender with me beyond all words. From him I had it that our enemies were gone to France; it would seemthey had thought it better to remain absent for a while. He had learntthat they were in Paris, and hither I determined forthwith to followthem. Vainly did my father remonstrate with me; vainly did he urge merather: to bear my story to the King at Whitehall and seek for justice. I had been well advised had I obeyed this counsel, but I burned to takemy vengeance with my own hands, and with this purpose I repaired toFrance. 

"Two nights after my arrival in Paris it was my ill-fortune to beembroiled in a rough-and-tumble in the streets, and by an ill-chance Ikilled a man--the first was he of several that I have sent whither Iam going to-morrow. The affair was like to have cost me my life, but byanother of those miracles which have prolonged it, I was sent insteadto the galleys on the Mediterranean. It was only wanting that, after allthat already I had endured, I should become a galley-slave!

"For twelve long years I toiled at an oar, and waited. If I lived Iwould return to England; and if I returned, woe unto those that hadwrecked my life--my body and my soul. I did live, and I did return. TheCivil War had broken out, and I came to throw my sword into the balanceon the King's side: I came, too, to be avenged, but that would wait. 

"Meanwhile, the score had grown heavier. I went home to find the castlein usurping hands--in the hands of my enemies. My father was dead; hedied a few months after I had gone to France; and those murderers hadadvanced a claim that through my marriage with their cousin, since dead, and through my own death, there being no next of kin, they werethe heirs-at-law. The Parliament allowed their claim, and they wereinstalled. But when I came they were away, following the fortunes of theParliament that had served them so well. And so I determined to let myvengeance wait until the war were ended and the Parliament destroyed. Ina hundred engagements did I distinguish myself by my recklessness evenas at other seasons I distinguished myself by my debaucheries. 

"Ah, Kenneth, you have been hard upon me for my vices, for my abuses ofthe cup, and all the rest. But can you be hard upon me still, knowingwhat I had suffered, and what a weight of misery I bore with me? I, whose life was wrecked beyond salvation; who only lived that I mightslit the throats of those that had so irreparably wronged me. Think youstill that it was so vicious a thing, so unpardonable an offence to seekthe blessed nepenthe of the wine-cup, the heavenly forgetfulness thatits abuses brought me? Is it strange that I became known as the wildesttantivy boy that rode with the King? What else had I?"

"In all truth your trials were sore, " said the lad in a voice thatcontained a note of sympathy. And yet there was a certain restraint thatcaught the Tavern Knight's ear. He turned his head and bent his eyes inthe lad's direction, but it was quite dark by now, and he failed to makeout his companion's face. 

"My tale is told, Kenneth. The rest you can guess. The King did notprevail and I was forced to fly from England with those others whoescaped from the butchers that had made a martyr of Charles. I tookservice in France under the great Conde, and I saw some mighty battles. At length came the council of Breda and the invitation to Charles theSecond to receive the crown of Scotland. I set out again to follow hisfortunes as I had followed his father's, realizing that by so doing Ifollowed my own, and that did he prevail I should have the redress andvengeance so long awaited. To-day has dashed my last hope; to-morrowat this hour it will not signify. And yet much would I give to have myfingers on the throats of those two hounds before the hangman's closearound my own. "

There was a spell of silence as the two men sat, both breathing heavilyin the gloom that enveloped them. At length:

"You have heard my story, Kenneth, " said Crispin. 

"I have heard, Sir Crispin, and God knows I pity you. "

That was all, and Galliard felt that it was not enough. He had laceratedhis soul with those grim memories to earn a yet kinder word. He hadlooked even to hear the lad suing for pardon for the harsh opinionswherein he had held him. Strange was this yearning of his for the boy'ssympathy. He who for twenty years had gone unloving and unloved, soughtnow in his extremity affection from a fellow-man. 

And so in the gloom he waited for a kinder word that came not; then--sourgent was his need--he set himself to beg it. 

"Can you not understand now, Kenneth, how I came to fall so low? Can younot understand this dissoluteness of mine, which led them to dub me theTavern Knight after the King conferred upon me the honour of knighthoodfor that stand of mine in Fifeshire? You must understand, Kenneth, "he insisted almost piteously, "and knowing all, you must judge me moremercifully than hitherto. "

"It is not mine to judge, Sir Crispin. I pity you with all my heart, "the lad replied, not ungently. 

Still the knight was dissatisfied. "Yours it is to judge as every manmay judge his fellowman. You mean it is not yours to sentence. But ifyours it were, Kenneth, what then?"

The lad paused a moment ere he answered. His bigoted Presbyteriantraining was strong within him, and although, as he said, he pitiedGalliard, yet to him whose mind was stuffed with life's precepts, andwho knew naught of the trials it brings to some and the temptations towhich they were not human did they not succumb--it seemed that vice wasnot to be excused by misfortune. Out of mercy then he paused, and fora moment he had it even in his mind to cheer his fellow-captive with alie. Then, remembering that he was to die upon the morrow, and thatat such a time it was not well to risk the perdition of his soul by anuntruth, however merciful, he answered slowly:

"Were I to judge you, since you ask me, sir, I should be mercifulbecause of your misfortunes. And yet, Sir Crispin, your profligacy andthe evil you have wrought in life must weigh heavily against you. " Hadthis immaculate bigot, this churlish milksop been as candid with himselfas he was with Crispin, he must have recognized that it was mainlyCrispin's offences towards himself that his mind now dwelt on in=deeperrancour than became one so well acquainted with the Lord's Prayer. 

"You had not cause enough, " he added impressively, "to defile your souland risk its eternal damnation because the evil of others had wreckedyour life. "

Crispin drew breath with the sharp hiss of one in pain, and for a momentafter all was still. Then a bitter laugh broke from him. 

"Bravely answered, reverend sir, " he cried with biting scorn. "I marvelonly that you left your pulpit to gird on a sword; that you doffed yourcassock to don a cuirass. Here is a text for you who deal in texts, mybrave Jack Presbyter--'Judge you your neighbour as you would yourselfbe judged; be merciful as you would hope for mercy. ' Chew you the cud ofthat until the hangman's coming in the morning. Good night to you. "

And throwing himself back upon the bed, Crispin sought comfort in sleep. His limbs were heavy and his heart was sick. 

"You misapprehend me, Sir Crispin, " cried the lad, stung almost to shameby Galliard's reproach, and also mayhap into some fear that hereafterhe should find little mercy for his own lack of it towards a poorfellow-sinner. "I spoke not as I would judge, but as the Churchteaches. "

"If the Church teaches no better I rejoice that I was no churchman, "grunted Crispin. 

"For myself, " the lad pursued, heeding not the irreverent interruption, "as I have said, I pity you with all my heart. More than that, so deeplydo I feel, so great a loathing and indignation has your story sown inmy heart, that were our liberty now restored us I would willingly joinhands with you in wreaking vengeance on these evildoers. "

Sir Crispin laughed. He judged the tone rather than the words, and itrang hollow. 

"Where are your wits, O casuist?" he cried mockingly. "Where are yourdoctrines? 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!' Pah!"

And with that final ejaculation, pregnant with contempt and bitterness, he composed himself to sleep. 

He was accursed he told himself. He must die alone, as he had lived. 

CHAPTER VIII. THE TWISTED BAR

Nature asserted herself, and, despite his condition, Crispin slept. Kenneth sat huddled on his chair, and in awe and amazement he listenedto his companion's regular breathing. He had not Galliard's nerves norGalliard's indifference to death, so that neither could he follow hisexample, nor yet so much as realize how one should slumber upon the verybrink of eternity. 

For a moment his wonder stood perilously near to admiration; then hisreligious training swayed him, and his righteousness almost drew fromhim a contempt of this man's apathy. There was much of the Pharisee'sattitude towards the publican in his mood. 

Anon that regular breathing grew irritating to him; it drew so marked acontrast 'twixt Crispin's frame of mind and his own. Whilst Crispin hadrelated his story, the interest it awakened had served to banish thespectre of fear which the thought of the morrow conjured up. Now thatCrispin was silent and asleep, that spectre returned, and the lad grewnumb and sick with the horror of his position. 

Thought followed thought as he sat huddled there with sunken head andhands clasped tight between his knees, and they were mostly of his dulluneventful days in Scotland, and ever and anon of Cynthia, his beloved. Would she hear of his end? Would she weep for him?--as though itmattered! And every train of thought that he embarked upon brought himto the same issue--to-morrow! Shuddering he would clench his hands stilltighter, and the perspiration would stand' out in beads upon his callowbrow. 

At length he flung himself upon his knees to address not so mucha prayer as a maudlin grievance to his Creator. He felt himself acraven--doubly so by virtue of the peaceful breathing of that sinner hedespised--and he told himself that it was not in fear a gentleman shouldmeet his end. 

"But I shall be brave to-morrow. I shall be brave, " he muttered, andknew not that it was vanity begat the thought, and vanity that mightuphold him on the morrow when there were others by, however broken mightbe his spirit now. 

Meanwhile Crispin slept. When he awakened the light of a lanthorn was onhis face, and holding it stood beside him a tall black figure in a cloakand a slouched hat whose broad brim left the features unrevealed. 

Still half asleep, and blinking like an owl, he sat up. 

"I have always held burnt sack to be well enough, but--"

He stopped short, fully awake at last, and, suddenly remembering hiscondition and thinking they were come for him, he drew a sharp breathand in a voice as indifferent as he could make it:

"What's o'clock?" he asked. 

"Past midnight, miserable wretch, " was the answer delivered in a deepdroning voice. "Hast entered upon thy last day of life--a day whose sunthou'lt never see. But five hours more are left thee. "

"And it is to tell me this that you have awakened me?" demanded Galliardin such a voice that he of the cloak recoiled a step, as if he thoughta blow must follow. "Out on you for an unmannerly cur to break upon agentleman's repose. "

"I come, " returned the other in his droning voice, "to call upon thee torepent. "

"Plague me not, " answered Crispin, with a yawn. "I would sleep. "

"Soundly enough shalt thou sleep in a few hours' time. Bethink thee, miserable sinner, of thy soul. "

"Sir, " cried the Tavern Knight, "I am a man of marvellous shortendurance. But mark you this your ways to heaven are not my ways. Indeed, if heaven be peopled by such croaking things as you, I shall bethankful to escape it. So go, my friend, ere I become discourteous. "

The minister stood in silence for a moment; then setting his lanthornupon the table, he raised his hands and eyes towards the low ceiling ofthe chamber. 

"Vouchsafe, O Lord, " he prayed, "to touch yet the callous heart of thisobdurate, incorrigible sinner, this wicked, perjured and blasphemousmalignant, whose--"

He got no further. Crispin was upon his feet, his harsh countenancethrust into the very face of the minister; his eyes ablaze. 

"Out!" he thundered, pointing to the door. "Out! Begone! I would notbe guilty at the end of my life of striking a man in petticoats. But gowhilst I can bethink me of it! Go--take your prayers to hell. "

The minister fell back before that blaze of passion. For a second heappeared to hesitate, then he turned towards Kenneth, who stood behindin silence. But the lad's Presbyterian rearing had taught him to hate asectarian as he would a papist or as he would the devil, and he did nomore than echo Galliard's words--though in a gentler key. 

"I pray you go, " he said. "But if you would perform an act of charity, leave your lanthorn. It will be dark enough hereafter. "

The minister looked keenly at the boy, and won over by the humilityof his tone, he set the lanthorn on the table. Then moving towards thedoor, he stopped and addressed himself to Crispin. 

"I go since you oppose with violence my ministrations. But I shall prayfor you, and I will return anon, when perchance your heart shall besoftened by the near imminence of your end. "

"Sir, " quoth Crispin wearily, "you would outtalk a woman. "

"I've done, I've done, " he cried in trepidation, making shift to depart. On the threshold he paused again. "I leave you the lanthorn, " hesaid. "May it light you to a godlier frame of mind. I shall return atdaybreak. " And with that he went. 

Crispin yawned noisily when he was gone, and stretched himself. Thenpointing to the pallet:

"Come, lad, 'tis your turn, " said he. 

Kenneth shivered. "I could not sleep, " he cried. "I could not. "

"As you will. " And shrugging his shoulders, Crispin sat down on the edgeof the bed. 

"For cold comforters commend me to these cropeared cuckolds, " hegrumbled. "They are all thought for a man's soul, but for his body theycare nothing. Here am I who for the last ten hours have had neither meatnor drink. Not that I mind the meat so much, but, 'slife, my throat isdry as one of their sermons, and I would cheerfully give four of myfive hours of life for a posset of sack. A paltry lot are they, Kenneth, holding that because a man must die at dawn he need not sup to-night. Heigho! Some liar hath said that he who sleeps dines, and if I sleepperchance I shall forget my thirst. "

He stretched himself upon the bed, and presently he slept again. 

It was Kenneth who next awakened him. He opened his eyes to find the ladshivering as with an ague. His face was ashen. 

"Now, what's amiss? Oddslife, what ails you?" he cried. 

"Is there no way, Sir Crispin? Is there naught you can do?" wailed theyouth. 

Instantly Galliard sat up. 

"Poor lad, does the thought of the rope affright you?"

Kenneth bowed his head in silence. 

"Tis a scurvy death, I own. Look you, Kenneth, there is a dagger in myboot. If you would rather have cold steel, 'tis done. It is the lastservice I may render you, and I'll be as gentle as a mistress. Justthere, over the heart, and you'll know no more until you are inParadise. "

Turning down the leather of his right boot, he thrust his hand down theside of his leg. But Kenneth sprang back with a cry. 

"No, no, " he cried, covering his face with his hands. "Not that!You don't understand. It is death itself I would cheat. What odds toexchange one form for another? Is there no way out of this? Is there noway, Sir Crispin?" he demanded with clenched hands. 

"The approach of death makes you maudlin, sir, " quoth the other, in whomthis pitiful show of fear produced a profound disgust. "Is there no way;say you? There is the window, but 'tis seventy feet above the river; andthere is the door, but it is locked, and there is a sentry on the otherside. "

"I might have known it. I might have known that you would mock me. Whatis death to you, to whom life offers nothing? For you the prospect of ithas no terrors. But for me--bethink you, sir, I am scarce eighteen yearsof age, " he added brokenly, "and life was full of promise for me. O God, pity me!"

"True, lad, true, " the knight returned in softened tones. "I hadforgotten that death is not to you the blessed release that it is to me. And yet, and yet, " he mused, "do I not die leaving a task unfulfilled--atask of vengeance? And by my soul, I know no greater spur to make a mancling to life. Ah, " he sighed wistfully, "if indeed I could find a way. "

"Think, Sir Crispin, think, " cried the boy feverishly. 

"To what purpose? There is the window. But even if the bars were moved, which I see no manner of accomplishing, the drop to the river is seventyfeet at least. I measured it with my eyes when first we entered here. Wehave no rope. Your cloak rent in two and the pieces tied together wouldscarce yield us ten feet. Would you care to jump the remaining sixty?"

At the very thought of it the lad trembled, noting which Sir Crispinlaughed softly. 

"There. And yet, boy, it would be taking a risk which if successfulwould mean life--if otherwise, a speedier end than even the rope willafford you. Oddslife, " he cried, suddenly springing to his feet, andseizing the lanthorn. "Let us look at these bars. "

He stepped across to the window, and held the light so that its raysfell full upon the base of the vertical iron that barred the square. 

"It is much worn by rust, Kenneth, " he muttered. "The removal of thissingle piece of iron, " and he touched the lower arm of the cross, "should afford us passage. Who knows? Hum!"

He walked back to the table and set the lanthorn down. In a tremble, Kenneth watched his every movement, but spoke no word. 

"He who throws a main, " said Galliard, "must set a stake upon the board. I set my life--a stake that is already forfeit--and I throw for liberty. If I win, I win all; if I lose, I lose naught. 'Slife, I have thrownmany a main with Fate, but never one wherein the odds were moregenerous. Come, Kenneth, it is the only way, and we will attempt it ifwe can but move the bar. "

"You mean to leap?" gasped the lad. 

"Into the river. It is the only way. "

"O God, I dare not. It is a fearsome drop. "

"Longer, I confess, than they'll give you in an hour's time, if youremain; but it may lead elsewhere. "

The boy's mouth was parched. His eyes burned in their sockets, and yethis limbs shook with cold--but not the cold of that September night. 

"I'll try it, " he muttered with a gulp. Then suddenly clutchingGalliard's arm, he pointed to the window. 

"What ails you now?" quoth Crispin testily. 

"The dawn, Sir Crispin. The dawn. "

Crispin looked, and there, like a gash in the blackness of the heavens, he beheld a streak of grey. 

"Quick, Sir Crispin; there is no time to lose. The minister said hewould return at daybreak. "

"Let him come, " answered Galliard grimly, as he moved towards thecasement. 

He gripped the lower bar with his lean, sinewy hands, and setting hisknee against the masonry beneath it, he exerted the whole of his hugestrength--that awful strength acquired during those years of toil as agalley-slave, which even his debaucheries had not undermined. He felthis sinews straining until it seemed that they must crack; the sweatstood out upon his brow; his breathing grew stertorous. 

"It gives, " he panted at last. "It gives. "

He paused in his efforts, and withdrew his hands. 

"I must breathe a while. One other effort such as that, and it is done. 'Fore George, " he laughed, "it is the first time water has stood myfriend, for the rains have sadly rusted that iron. "

Without, their sentry was pacing before the door; his steps came nearer, passed, and receded; turned, came nigh again, and again passed on. As once more they grew faint, Crispin seized the bar and renewed hisattempt. This time it was easier. Gradually it ceded to the strainGalliard set upon it. 

Nearer came the sentry's footsteps, but they went unheeded by him whotoiled, and by him who watched with bated breath and beating heart. Hefelt it giving--giving--giving. Crack!

With a report that rang through the room like a pistol shot, it brokeoff in its socket. Both men caught their breath, and stood for a secondcrouching, with straining ears. The sentry had stopped at their door. 

Galliard was a man of quick action, swift to think, and as swift toexecute the thought. To thrust Kenneth into a corner, to extinguish thelight, and to fling himself upon the bed was all the work of an instant. 

The key grated in the lock, and Crispin answered it with a resoundingsnore. The door opened, and on the threshold stood the Roundheadtrooper, holding aloft a lanthorn whose rays were flashed back by hispolished cuirass. He beheld Crispin on the bed with closed eyes and openmouth, and he heard his reassuring and melodious snore. He saw Kennethseated peacefully upon the floor, with his back against the wall, andfor a moment he was puzzled. 

"Heard you aught?" he asked. 

"Aye, " answered Kenneth, in a strangled voice, "I heard something like ashot out there. "

The gesture with which he accompanied the words was fatal. Instinctivelyhe had jerked his thumb towards the window, thereby drawing thesoldier's eyes in that direction. The fellow's glance fell upon thetwisted bar, and a sharp exclamation of surprise escaped him. 

Had he been aught but a fool he must have guessed at once how it cameso, and having guessed it, he must have thought twice ere heventured within reach of a man who could so handle iron. But he was aslow-reasoning clod, and so far, thought had not yet taken the place ofsurprise. He stepped into, the chamber and across to the window, that hemight more closely view that broken bar. 

With eyes that were full of terror and despair, Kenneth watched him;their last hope had failed them. Then, as he looked, it seemed to himthat in one great leap from his recumbent position on the bed, Crispinhad fallen upon the soldier. 

The lanthorn was dashed from the fellow's hand, and rolled to Kenneth'sfeet. The fellow had begun' a cry, which broke off suddenly into agurgle as Galliard's fingers closed about his windpipe. He was a bigfellow, and in his mad struggles he carried: Crispin hither and thitherabout the room. Together: they hurtled against the table, which wouldhave: gone crashing over had not Kenneth caught it and drawn it softlyto the wall. 

Both men were now upon the bed. Crispin had guessed the soldier's intentto fling himself upon the ground so that the ring of his armour mightbe heard, and perchance bring others to his aid. To avoid this, Galliardhad swung him towards the bed, and hurled him on to it. There he pinnedhim with his knee, and with his fingers he gripped the Roundhead'sthroat, pressing the apple inwards with his thumb. 

"The door, Kenneth!" he commanded, in a whisper. "Close the door!"

Vain were the trooper's struggles to free himself from that throttlinggrip. Already his efforts grew his face was purple; his veins stood outin ropes upon his brow till they seemed upon the point of bursting; hiseyes protruded like a lobster's and there was a horrible grin upon hismouth; still his heels beat the bed, and still he struggled. With hisfingers he plucked madly at the throttling hands on his neck, andtore at them with his nails until the blood streamed from them. StillGalliard held him firmly, and with a smile--a diabolical smile it seemedto the poor, half-strangled wretch--he gazed upon his choking victim. 

"Someone comes!" gasped Kenneth suddenly. "Someone comes, Sir Crispin!"he repeated, shaking his hands in a frenzy. 

Galliard listened. Steps were approaching. The soldier heard them also, and renewed his efforts. Then Crispin spoke. 

"Why stand you there like a fool?" he growled. "Quench the light--stay, we may want it! Cast your cloak over it! Quick, man, quick!"

The steps came nearer. The lad had obeyed him, and they were indarkness. 

"Stand by the door, " whispered Crispin. "Fall upon him as he enters, and see that no cry escapes him. Take him by the throat, and as you loveyour life, do not let him get away. "

The footsteps halted. Kenneth crawled softly to his post. The soldier'sstruggles grew of a sudden still, and Crispin released his throat atlast. Then calmly drawing the fellow's dagger, he felt for the strapsof his cuirass, and these he proceeded to cut. As he did so the door wasopened. 

By the light of the lamp burning in the passage they beheld silhouettedupon the threshold a black figure crowned by a steeple hat. Then thedroning voice of the Puritan minister greeted them. 

"Your hour is at hand!" he announced. 

"Is it time?" asked Galliard from the bed. And as he put the question hesoftly thrust aside the trooper's breastplate, and set his hand to thefellow's heart. It still beat faintly. 

"In another hour they will come for you, " answered the minister. AndCrispin marvelled anxiously what Kenneth was about. "Repent then, miserable sinners, whilst yet--"

He broke off abruptly, awaking out of his religious zeal to a senseof strangeness at the darkness and the absence of the sentry, whichhitherto he had not remarked. 

"What hath--" he began. Then Galliard heard a gasp, followed by thenoise of a fall, and two struggling men came rolling across the chamberfloor. 

"Bravely done, boy!" he cried, almost mirthfully. "Cling to him, Kenneth; cling to him a second yet!"

He leapt from the bed, and guided by the faint light coming through thedoor, he sprang across the intervening space and softly closed it. Then he groped his way along the wall to the spot where he had seen thelanthorn stand when Kenneth had flung his cloak over it. As he went, thetwo striving men came up against him. 

"Hold fast, lad, " he cried, encouraging Kenneth, "hold him yet a moment, and I will relieve you!"

He reached the lanthorn at last, and pulling aside the cloak, he liftedthe light and set it upon the table. 

CHAPTER IX. THE BARGAIN

By the lanthorn's yellow glare Crispin beheld the two men-a mass ofwrithing bodies and a bunch of waving legs--upon the ground. Kenneth, who was uppermost, clung purposefully to the parson's throat. Thefaces of both were alike distorted, but whilst the lad's breath came ingasping hisses, the other's came not at all. 

Going over to the bed, Crispin drew the unconscious trooper'stuck-sword. He paused for a moment to bend over the man's face; hisbreath came faintly, and Crispin knew that ere many moments were spedhe would regain consciousness. He smiled grimly to see how well he hadperformed his work of suffocation without yet utterly destroying life. 

Sword in hand, he returned to Kenneth and the parson. The Puritan'sstruggles were already becoming mere spasmodic twitchings; his face wasas ghastly as the trooper's had been a while ago. 

"Release him, Kenneth, " said Crispin shortly. 

"He struggles still. "

"Release him, I say, " Galliard repeated, and stooping he caught thelad's wrist and compelled him to abandon his hold. 

"He will cry out, " exclaimed Kenneth, in apprehension. 

"Not he, " laughed Crispin. "Leastways, not yet awhile. Observe thewretch. "

With mouth wide agape, the minister lay gasping like a fish newlytaken from the water. Even now that his throat was free he appeared tostruggle for a moment before he could draw breath. Then he took it inpanting gulps until it seemed that he must choke in his gluttony of air. 

"Fore George, " quoth Crispin, "I was no more than in time. Anothersecond, and we should have had him, too, unconscious. There, he isrecovering. "

The blood was receding from the swollen veins of the parson's head, andhis cheeks were paling to their normal hue. Anon they went yet palerthan their wont, as Galliard rested the point of his sword against thefellow's neck. 

"Make sound or movement, " said Crispin coldly, "and I'll pin you to thefloor like a beetle. Obey me, and no harm shall come to you. "

"I will obey you, " the fellow answered, in a wheezing whisper. "I swearI will. But of your charity, good sir, I beseech you remove your sword. Your hand might slip, sir, " he whined, a wild terror in his eyes. 

Where now was the deep bass of his whilom accents? Where now thegrotesque majesty of his bearing, and the impressive gestures thaterstwhile had accompanied his words of denunciation?

"Your hand might slip, sir, " he whined again. 

"It might--and, by Gad, it shall if I hear more from you. So that youare discreet and obedient, have no fear of my hand. " Then, still keepinghis eye upon the fellow: "Kenneth, " he said, "attend to the crop-earyonder, he will be recovering. Truss him with the bedclothes, and gaghim with his scarf. See to it, Kenneth, and do it well, but leave hisnostrils free that he may breathe. "

Kenneth carried out Galliard's orders swiftly and effectively, what timeCrispin remained standing over the recumbent minister. At length, whenKenneth announced that it was done, he bade the Puritan rise. 

"But have a care, " he added, "or you shall taste the joys of theParadise you preach of. Come, sir parson; afoot!"

A prey to a fear that compelled unquestioning obedience, the fellow rosewith alacrity. 

"Stand there, sir. So, " commanded Crispin, his point within an inch ofthe man's Geneva bands. "Take your kerchief, Kenneth, and pinion hiswrists behind him. "

That done, Crispin bade the lad unbuckle and remove the parson's belt. Next he ordered that man of texts to be seated upon their only chair, and with that same belt he commanded Kenneth to strap him to it. Whenat length the Puritan was safely bound, Crispin lowered his rapier, andseated himself upon the table edge beside him. 

"Now, sir parson, " quoth he, "let us talk a while. At your first outcryI shall hurry you into that future world whither it is your mission toguide the souls of others. Maybe you'll find it a better world to preachof than to inhabit, and so, for your own sake, I make no doubt youwill obey me. To your honour, to your good sense and a parson's naturalhorror of a lie, I look for truth in answer to what questions I mayset you. Should I find you deceiving me, sir, I shall see that yourfalsehood overtakes you. " And eloquently raising his blade, he intimatedthe exact course he would adopt. "Now, sir, attend to me. How soon areour friends likely to discover this topsy-turvydom?"

"When they come for you, " answered the parson meekly. 

"And how soon, O prophet, will they come?"

"In an hour's time, or thereabout, " replied the Puritan, glancingtowards the window as he spoke. Galliard followed his glance, andobserved that the light was growing perceptibly stronger. 

"Aye, " he commented, "in an hour's time there should be light enough tohang us by. Is there no chance of anyone coming sooner?"

"None that I can imagine. The only other occupants of the house are aparty of half a dozen troopers in the guardroom below. "

"Where is the Lord General?"

"Away--I know not where. But he will be here at sunrise. "

"And the sentry that was at our door--is he not to a changed 'twixt thisand hanging-time?"

"I cannot say for sure, but I think not. The guard was relieved justbefore I came. "

"And the men in the guardroom--answer me truthfully, O Elijah--whatmanner of watch are they keeping?"

"Alas, sir, they have drunk enough this night to put a rakehellyCavalier to shame. I was but exhorting them. "

When Kenneth had removed the Puritan's girdle, a small Bible--such asmen of his calling were wont to carry--had dropped out. This Kenneth hadplaced upon the table. Galliard now took it up, and, holding it beforethe Puritan's eyes, he watched him narrowly the while. 

"Will you swear by this book that you have answered nothing but thetruth?"

Without a moment's hesitation the parson pledged his oath, that, to thebest of his belief, he had answered accurately. 

"That is well, sir. And now, though it grieve me to cause you someslight discomfort, I must ensure your silence, my friend. "

And, placing his sword upon the table, he passed behind the Puritan, andtaking the man's own scarf, he effectively gagged him with it. 

"Now, Kenneth, " said he, turning to the lad. Then he stopped abruptly asif smitten by a sudden thought. Presently--"Kenneth, " he continued in adifferent tone, "a while ago I mind me you said that were your libertyrestored you, you would join hands with me in punishing the evildoerswho wrecked my life. "

"I did, Sir Crispin. "

For a moment the knight paused. It was a vile thing that he was about todo, he told himself, and as he realized how vile, his impulse was to sayno more; to abandon the suddenly formed project and to trust to his ownunaided wits and hands. But as again he thought of the vast use this ladwould be to him--this lad who was the betrothed of Cynthia Ashburn--hesaw that the matter was not one hastily to be judged and dismissed. Carefully he weighed it in the balance of his mind. On the one hand wasthe knowledge that did they succeed in making good their escape, Kenneth would naturally fly for shelter to his friends the Ashburns--theusurpers of Castle Marleigh. What then more natural than his taking withhim the man who had helped him to escape, and who shared his own dangerof recapture? And with so plausible a motive for admission to CastleMarleigh, how easy would not his vengeance become? He might at firstwean himself into their good graces, and afterwards--

Before his mental eyes there unfolded itself the vista of a greatrevenge; one that should be worthy of him, and commensurate with thefoul deed that called for it. 

In the other scale the treacherous flavour of this method weighedheavily. He proposed to bind the lad to a promise, the shape of whosefulfilment he would withhold--a promise the lad would readily give, andyet, one that he must sooner die than enter into, did he but know whatmanner of fulfilment would be exacted. It amounted to betraying the ladinto a betrayal of his friends--the people of his future wife. Whateverthe issue for Crispin, 'twas odds Kenneth's prospect of wedding thisCynthia would be blighted for all time by the action into which Galliardproposed to thrust him all unconscious. 

So stood the case in Galliard's mind, and the scales fell now on oneside, now on the other. But against his scruples rose the memory of thetreatment which the lad had meted out to him that night; the harshnessof the boy's judgment; the irrevocable contempt wherein he had clearlyseen that he was held by this fatuous milksop. All this aroused hisrancour now, and steeled his heart against the voice of honour. Whatwas this boy to him, he asked himself, that he should forego for him theaccomplishing of his designs? How had this lad earned any considerationfrom him? What did he owe him? Naught! Still, he would not decide inhaste. 

It was characteristic of the man whom Kenneth held to be destitute ofall honourable principles, to stand thus in the midst of perils, whenevery second that sped lessened their chances of escape, turning overin his mind calmly and collectedly a point of conduct. It was in hispassions only that Crispin was ungovernable, in violence only that hewas swift--in all things else was he deliberate. 

Of this Kenneth had now a proof that set him quaking with impatientfear. Anxiously, his hands clenched and his face pale, he watched hiscompanion, who stood with brows knit in thought, and his greyeyes staring at the ground. At length he could brook that, to him, incomprehensible and mad delay no longer. 

"Sir Crispin, " he whispered, plucking at his sleeve; "Sir Crispin. "

The knight flashed him a glance that was almost of anger. Then the firedied out of his eyes; he sighed and spoke. In that second's glancehe had seen the lad's face; the fear and impatience written on it haddisgusted him, and caused the scales to fall suddenly and definitelyagainst the boy. 

"I was thinking how it might be accomplished, " he said. 

"There is but one way, " cried the lad. 

"On the contrary, there are two, and I wish to choose carefully. "

"If you delay your choice much longer, none will be left you, " criedKenneth impatiently. 

Noting the lad's growing fears, and resolved now upon his course, Galliard set himself to play upon them until terror should render theboy as wax in his hands. 

"There speaks your callow inexperience, " said he, with a pitying smile. "When you shall have lived as long as I have done, and endured as much;when you shall have set your wits to the saving of your life as oftenas have I--you will have learnt that haste is fatal to all enterprises. Failure means the forfeiture of something; tonight it would mean theforfeiture of our lives, and it were a pity to let such good efforts asthese"--and with a wave of the hand he indicated their two captors--"gowasted. "

"Sir, " exclaimed Kenneth, well-nigh beside himself, "if you come notwith me, I go alone!"

"Whither?" asked Crispin dryly. 

"Out of this. "

Galliard bowed slightly. 

"Fare you well, sir. I'll not detain you. Your way is clear, and it isfor you to choose between the door and the window. "

And with that Crispin turned his back upon his companion and crossed tothe bed, where the trooper lay glaring in mute anger. He stooped, and unbuckling the soldier's swordbelt--to which the scabbard wasattached--he girt himself with it. Without raising his eyes, and keepinghis back to Kenneth, who stood between him and the door, he went next tothe table, and, taking up the sword that he had left there, he restoredit to the sheath. As the hilt clicked against the mouth of the scabbard:

"Come, Sir Crispin!" cried the lad. "Are you ready?"

Galliard wheeled sharply round. 

"How? Not gone yet?" said he sardonically. 

"I dare not, " the lad confessed. "I dare not go alone. "

Galliard laughed softly; then suddenly waxed grave. 

"Ere we go, Master Kenneth, I would again remind you of your assurancethat were we to regain our liberty you would aid me in the task ofvengeance that lies before me. "

"Once already have I answered you that it is so. "

"And pray, are you still of the same mind?"

"I am, I am! Anything, Sir Crispin; anything so that you come away!"

"Not so fast, Kenneth. The promise that I shall ask of you is not tobe so lightly given. If we escape I may fairly claim to have saved yourlife, 'twixt what I have done and what I may yet do. Is it not so?"

"Oh, I acknowledge it!"

"Then, sir, in payment I shall expect your aid hereafter to help me inthat which I must accomplish, that which the hope of accomplishing isthe only spur to my own escape. "

"You have my promise!" cried the lad. 

"Do not give it lightly, Kenneth, " said Crispin gravely. "It may causeyou much discomfort, and may be fraught with danger even to your life. "

"I promise. "

Galliard bowed his head; then, turning, he took the Bible from thetable. 

"With your hand upon this book, by your honour, your faith, and yourevery hope of salvation, swear that if I bear you alive out of thishouse you will devote yourself to me and to my task of vengeance untilit shall be accomplished or until I perish; swear that you will setaside all personal matters and inclinations of your own, to serve mewhen I shall call upon you. Swear that, and, in return, I will givemy life if need be to save yours to-night, in which case you will bereleased from your oath without more ado. "

The lad paused a moment. Crispin was so impressive, the oath he imposedso solemn, that for an instant the boy hesitated. His cautious, timidnature whispered to him that perchance he should know more of thismatter ere he bound himself so irrevocably. But Crispin, noting thehesitation, stifled it by appealing to the lad's fears. 

"Resolve yourself, " he exclaimed abruptly. "It grows light, and the timefor haste is come. "

"I swear!" answered Kenneth, overcome by his impatience. "I swear, by myhonour, my faith, and my every hope of heaven to lend you my aid, whenand how you may demand it, until your task be accomplished. "

Crispin took the Bible from the boy's hands, and replaced it on thetable. His lips were pressed tight, and he avoided the lad's eyes. 

"You shall not find me wanting in my part of the bargain, " he muttered, as he took up the soldier's cloak and hat. "Come, take that parson'ssteeple hat and his cloak, and let us be going. "

He crossed to the door, and opening it he peered down the passage. Amoment he stood listening. All was still. Then he turned again. In thechamber the steely light of the breaking day was rendering more yellowstill the lanthorn's yellow flame. 

"Fare you well, sir parson, " he said. "Forgive me the discomfort I havebeen forced to put upon you, and pray for the success of our escape. Commend me to Oliver of the ruby nose. Fare you well, sir. Come, Kenneth. "

He held the door for the lad to pass out. As they stood in the dimlylighted passage he closed it softly after them, and turned the key inthe lock. 

"Come, " he said again, and led the way to the stairs, Kenneth tiptoeingafter him with wildly beating heart. 

CHAPTER X. THE ESCAPE

Treading softly, and with ears straining for the slightest sound, thetwo men descended to the first floor of the house. They heard nothingto alarm them as they crept down, and not until they paused on the firstlanding to reconnoitre did they even catch the murmur of voices issuingfrom the guardroom below. So muffled was the sound that Crispin guessedhow matters stood even before he had looked over the balusters intothe hall beneath. The faint grey of the dawn was the only light thatpenetrated the gloom of that pit. 

"The Fates are kind, Kenneth, " he whispered. "Those fools sit withclosed doors. Come. "

But Kenneth laid his hand upon Galliard's sleeve. "What if the doorshould open as we pass?"

"Someone will die, " muttered Crispin back. "But pray God that it maynot. We must run the risk. "

"Is there no other way?"

"Why, yes, " returned Galliard sardonically, "we can linger here until weare taken. But, oddslife, I'm not so minded. Come. "

And as he spoke he drew the lad along. 

His foot was upon the topmost stair of the flight, when of a sudden thestillness of the house was broken by a loud knock upon the street door. Instantly--as though they had been awaiting it there was a stir of feetbelow and the bang of an overturned chair; then a shaft of yellow lightfell athwart the darkness of the hall as the guardroom door was opened. 

"Back!" growled Galliard. "Back, man!"

They were but in time. Peering over the balusters they saw two trooperspass out of the guardroom, and cross the hall to the door. A bolt wasdrawn and a chain rattled, then followed the creak of hinges, and on thestone flags rang the footsteps and the jingling of spurs of those thatentered. 

"Is all well?" came a voice, which Crispin recognized as ColonelPride's, followed by an affirmative reply from one of the soldiers. 

"Hath a minister visited the malignants?"

"Master Toneleigh is with them even now. "

In the hall Crispin could now make out the figures of Colonel Pride andof three men who came with him. But he had scant leisure to survey them, for the colonel was in haste. 

"Come, sirs, " he heard him say, "light me to their garret. I would seethem--leastways, one of them, before he dies. They are to hang wherethe Moabites hanged Gives yesterday. Had I my way... But, there lead on, fellow. "

"Oh, God!" gasped Kenneth, as the soldier set foot upon the stairs. Under his breath Crispin swore a terrific oath. For an instant it seemedto him there was naught left but to stand there and await recapture. Through his mind it flashed that they were five, and he but one; for hiscompanion was unarmed. 

With that swiftness which thought alone can compass did he weigh theodds, and judge his chances. He realized how desperate they were did heremain, and even as he thought he glanced sharply round. 

Dim indeed was the light, but his sight was keen, and quickened by theimminence of danger. Partly his eyes and partly his instinct toldhim that not six paces behind him there must be a door, and if Heavenpleased it should be unlocked, behind it they must look for shelter. It even crossed his mind in that second of crowding, galloping thought, that perchance the room might be occupied. That was a risk he musttake--the lesser risk of the two, the choice of one of which was forcedupon him. He had determined all this ere the soldier's foot was upon thethird step of the staircase, and before the colonel had commenced theascent. Kenneth stood palsied with fear, gazing like one fascinated atthe approaching peril. 

Then upon his ear fell the fierce whisper: "Come with me, and treadlightly as you love your life. "

In three long strides, and by steps that were softer than a cat's, Crispin crossed to the door which he had rather guessed than seen. Heran his hand along until he caught the latch. Softly he tried it; itgave, and the door opened. Kenneth was by then beside him. He paused tolook back. 

On the opposite wall the light of the trooper's lanthorn fell brightly. Another moment and the fellow would have reached and turned the cornerof the stairs, and his light must reveal them to him. But ere thatinstant was passed Crispin had drawn his companion through, and closedthe door as softly as he had opened it. The chamber was untenantedand almost bare of furniture, at which discovery Crispin breathed morefreely. 

They stood there, and heard the ascending footsteps, and the clank-clankof a sword against the stair-rail. A bar of yellow light came under thedoor that sheltered them. Stronger it grew and farther it crept alongthe floor; then stopped and receded again, as he who bore the lanthornturned and began to climb to the second floor. An instant later and thelight had vanished, eclipsed by those who followed in the fellow's wake. 

"The window, Sir Crispin, " cried Kenneth, in an excited whisper--"thewindow!"

"No, " answered Crispin calmly. "The drop is a long one, and we shouldbut light in the streets, and be little better than we are here. Wait. "

He listened. The footsteps had turned the corner leading to the floorabove. He opened the door, partly at first, then wide. For an instanthe stood listening again. The steps were well overhead by now; soon theywould mount the last flight, and then discovery must be swift to follow. 

"Now, " was all Crispin said, and, drawing his sword he led the wayswiftly, yet cautiously, to the stairs once more. In passing he glancedover the rails. The guardroom door stood ajar, and he caught the murmursof subdued conversation. But he did not pause. Had the door stood widehe would not have paused then. There was not a second to be lost; towait was to increase the already overwhelming danger. Cautiously, andleaning well upon the stout baluster, he began the descent. Kennethfollowed him mechanically, with white face and a feeling of suffocationin his throat. 

They gained the corner, and turning, they began what was truly theperilous part of their journey. Not more than a dozen steps were there;but at the bottom stood the guardroom door, and through the chink ofits opening a shaft of light fell upon the nethermost step. Once a staircreaked, and to their quickened senses it sounded like a pistol-shot. Asloud to Crispin sounded the indrawn breath of apprehension from Kenneththat followed it. He had almost paused to curse the lad when, thinkinghim of how time pressed, he went on. 

Within three steps of the bottom were they, and they could almostdistinguish what was being said in the room, when Crispin stopped, andturning his head to attract Kenneth's attention, he pointed straightacross the hall to a dimly visible door. It was that of the chamberwherein he had been brought before Cromwell. Its position had occurredto him some moments before, and he had determined then upon going thatway. 

The lad followed the indication of his finger, and signified by a nodthat he understood. Another step Galliard descended; then from theguardroom came a loud yawn, to send the boy cowering against the wall. It was followed by the sound of someone rising; a chair grated upon thefloor, and there was a movement of feet within the chamber. Had Kennethbeen alone, of a certainty terror would have frozen him to the wall. 

But the calm, unmovable Crispin proceeded as if naught had chanced; heargued that even if he who had risen were coming towards the door, therewas nothing to be gained by standing still. Their only chance lay now inpassing before it might be opened. 

They that walk through perils in a brave man's company cannot but gainconfidence from the calm of his demeanour. So was it now with Kenneth. The steady onward march of that tall, lank figure before him drew himirresistibly after it despite his tremors. And well it was for him thatthis was so. They gained the bottom of the staircase at length; theystood beside the door of the guardroom, they passed it in safety. Thenslowly--painfully slowly--to avoid their steps from ringing upon thestone floor, they crept across towards the door that meant safety to SirCrispin. Slowly, step by step, they moved, and with every stride Crispinlooked behind him, prepared to rush the moment he had sign they werediscovered. But it was not needed. In silence and in safety they werepermitted to reach the door. To Crispin's joy it was unfastened. Quietlyhe opened it, then with calm gallantry he motioned to his companion togo first, holding it for him as he passed in, and keeping watch with eyeand ear the while. 

Scarce had Kenneth entered the chamber when from above came the soundof loud and excited voices, announcing to them that their flight was atlast discovered. It was responded to by a rush of feet in the guardroom, and Crispin had but time to dart in after his companion and close thedoor ere the troopers poured out into the hall and up the stairs, withconfused shouts that something must be amiss. 

Within the room that sheltered him Crispin chuckled, as he ran his handalong the edge of the door until he found the bolt, and softly shot ithome. 

"'Slife, " he muttered, "'twas a close thing! Aye, shout, you cuckolds, "he went on. "Yell yourselves hoarse as the crows you are! You'll hang uswhere Gives are hanged, will you?"

Kenneth tugged at the skirts of his doublet. "What now?" he inquired. 

"Now, " said Crispin, "we'll leave by the window, if it please you. "

They crossed the room, and a moment or two later they had dropped onto the narrow railed pathway overlooking the river, which Crispin hadobserved from their prison window the evening before. He had observed, too, that a small boat was moored at some steps about a hundred yardsfarther down the stream, and towards that spot he now sped alongthe footpath, followed closely by Kenneth. The path sloped in thatdirection, so that by the time the spot was reached the water flowed notmore than six feet or so beneath them. Half a dozen steps took themdown this to the moorings of that boat, which fortunately had not beenremoved. 

"Get in, Kenneth, " Crispin commanded. "There, I'll take the oars, andI'll keep under shelter of the bank lest those blunderers should bethinkthem of looking out of our prison window. Oddswounds, Kenneth, I amhungry as a wolf, and as dry--ough, as dry as Dives when he begged for asup of water. Heaven send we come upon some good malignant homestead erewe go far, where a Christian may find a meal and a stoup of ale. 'Tis amiracle I had strength enough to crawl downstairs. Swounds, but an emptystomach is a craven comrade in a desperate enterprise. Hey! Have a care, boy. Now, sink me if this milksop hasn't fainted!"

CHAPTER XI. THE ASHBURNS

Gregory Ashburn pushed back his chair and made shift to rise from thetable at which he and his brother had but dined. 

He was a tall, heavily built man, with a coarse, florid countenance setin a frame of reddish hair that hung straight and limp. In the colour oftheir hair lay the only point of resemblance between the brothers. For the rest Joseph was spare and of middle weight, pale of face, thin-lipped, and owning a cunning expression that was rendered very evilby virtue of the slight cast in his colourless eyes. 

In earlier life Gregory had not been unhandsome; debauchery and slothhad puffed and coarsened him. Joseph, on the other hand, had never beenaught but ill-favoured. 

"Tis a week since Worcester field was fought, " grumbled Gregory, lookinglazily sideways at the mullioned windows as he spoke, "and never a wordfrom the lad. "

Joseph shrugged his narrow shoulders and sneered. It was Joseph's habitto sneer when he spoke, and his words were wont to fit the sneer. 

"Doth the lack of news trouble you?" he asked, glancing across the tableat his brother. 

Gregory rose without meeting that glance. 

"Truth to tell it does trouble me, " he muttered. 

"And yet, " quoth Joseph, "tis a natural thing enough. When battles arefought it is not uncommon for men to die. "

Gregory crossed slowly to the window, and stared out at the trees of thepark which autumn was fast stripping. 

"If he were among the fallen--if he were dead then indeed the matterwould be at an end. "

"Aye, and well ended. "

"You forget Cynthia, " Gregory reproved him. 

"Forget her? Not I, man. Listen. " And he jerked his thumb in thedirection of the wainscot. 

To the two men in that rich chamber of Castle Marleigh was borne thesound--softened by distance of a girlish voice merrily singing. 

Joseph laughed a cackle of contempt. 

"Is that the song of a maid whose lover comes not back from the wars?"he asked. 

"But bethink you, Joseph, the child suspects not the possibility of hishaving fallen. "

"Gadswounds, sir, did your daughter give the fellow a thought she mustbe anxious. A week yesterday since the battle, and no word from him. I dare swear, Gregory, there's little in that to warrant his mistresssinging. "

"Cynthia is young--a child. She reasons not as you and I, nor seeks toaccount for his absence. "

"Troubles not to account for it, " Joseph amended. 

"Be that as it may, " returned Gregory irritably, "I would I knew. "

"That which we do not know we may sometimes infer. I infer him to bedead, and there's the end of it. "

"What if he should not be?"

"Then, my good fool, he would be here. "

"It is unlike you, Joseph, to argue so loosely. What if he should be aprisoner?"

"Why, then, the plantations will do that which the battle hath leftundone. So that, dead or captive, you see it is all one. "

And, lifting his glass to the light, he closed one eye, the better tosurvey with the other the rich colour of the wine. Not that Joseph wascurious touching that colour, but he was a juggler in gestures, and atthat moment he could think of no other whereby he might so naturallyconvey the utter indifference of his feelings in the matter. 

"Joseph, you are wrong, " said Gregory, turning his back upon the windowand facing his brother. "It is not all one. What if he return some day?"

"Oh, what if--what if--what if!" cried Joseph testily. "Gregory, what acasuist you might have been had not nature made you a villain! Youare as full of "what if s" as an egg of meat. Well what if some day heshould return? I fling your question back--what if?"

"God only knows. "

"Then leave it to Him, " was the flippant answer; and Joseph drained hisglass. 

"Nay, brother, 'twere too great a risk. I must and I will know whetherKenneth were slain or not. If he is a prisoner, then we must exertourselves to win his freedom. "

"Plague take it, " Joseph burst out. "Why all this ado? Why did you everloose that graceless whelp from his Scottish moor?"

Gregory sighed with an air of resigned patience. 

"I have more reasons than one, " he answered slowly. "If you need thatI recite them to you, I pity your wits. Look you, Joseph, you have moreinfluence with Cromwell; more--far more--than have I, and if you areminded to do so, you can serve me in this. "

"I wait but to learn how. "

"Then go to Cromwell, at Windsor or wherever he may be, and seek tolearn from him if Kenneth is a prisoner. If he is not, then clearly heis dead. "

Joseph made a gesture of impatience. 

"Can you not leave Fate alone?"

"Think you I have no conscience, Joseph?" cried the other with suddenvigour. 

"Pish! you are womanish. "

"Nay, Joseph, I am old. I am in the autumn of my days, and I would seethese two wed before I die. "

"And are damned for a croaking, maudlin' craven, " added Joseph. "Pah!You make me sick. "

There was a moment's silence, during which the brothers eyed each other, Gregory with a sternness before which Joseph's mocking eye was forced atlength to fall. 

"Joseph, you shall go to the Lord General. "

"Well, " said Joseph weakly, "we will say that I go. But if Kenneth be aprisoner, what then?"

"You must beg his liberty from Cromwell. He will not refuse you. "

"Will he not? I am none so confident. "

"But you can make the attempt, and leastways we shall have some definiteknowledge of what has befallen the boy. "

"The which definite knowledge seems to me none so necessary. Moreover, Gregory, bethink you; there has been a change, and the wind carries anedge that will arouse every devil of rheumatism in my bones. I am not alad, Gregory, and travelling at this season is no small matter for a manof fifty. "

Gregory approached the table, and leaning his hand upon it:

"Will you go?" he asked, squarely eyeing his brother. 

Joseph fell a-pondering. He knew Gregory to be a man of fixed ideas, andhe bethought him that were he now to refuse he would be hourly plaguedby Gregory's speculations touching the boy's fate and recriminationstouching his own selfishness. On the other hand, however, the journeydaunted him. He was not a man to sacrifice his creature comforts, and tobe asked to sacrifice them to a mere whim, a shadow, added weight to hisinclination to refuse the undertaking. 

"Since you have the matter so much at heart, " said he at length, "doesit not occur to you that you could plead with greater fervour, and bethe likelier to succeed?"

"You know that Cromwell will lend a more willing ear to you than tome--perchance because you know so well upon occasion how to weave yourstock of texts into your discourse, " he added with a sneer. "Will yougo, Joseph?"

"Bethink you that we know not where he is. I may have to wander forweeks o'er the face of England. "

"Will you go?" Gregory repeated. 

"Oh, a pox on it, " broke out Joseph, rising suddenly. "I'll go sincenaught else will quiet you. I'll start to-morrow. "

"Joseph, I am grateful. I shall be more grateful yet if you will startto-day. "

"No, sink me, no. "

"Yes, sink me, yes, " returned Gregory. "You must, Joseph. "

Joseph spoke of the wind again; the sky, he urged, was heavy with rain. "What signifies a day?" he whined. 

But Gregory stood his ground until almost out of self-protection theother consented to do his bidding and set out as soon as he could makeready. 

This being determined, Joseph left his brother, and cursing MasterStewart for the amount of discomfort which he was about to endure on hisbehoof, he went to prepare for the journey. 

Gregory lingered still in the chamber where they had dined, and satstaring moodily before him at the table-linen. Anon, with a half-laughof contempt, he filled a glass of muscadine, and drained it. As he setdown the glass the door opened, and on the threshold stood a very daintygirl, whose age could not be more than twenty. Gregory looked on thefresh, oval face, with its wealth of brown hair crowning the low, broadforehead, and told himself that in his daughter he had just cause forpride. He looked again, and told himself that his brother was right;she had not the air of a maid whose lover returns not from the wars. Her lips were smiling, and the eyes--low-lidded and blue as theheavens--were bright with mirth. 

"Why sit you there so glum, " she cried, "whilst my uncle, they tell me, is going on a journey?"

Gregory was minded to put her feelings to the test. 

"Kenneth, " he replied with significant emphasis, watching her closely. 

The mirth faded from her eyes, and they took on a grave expression thatadded to their charm. But Gregory had looked for fear, leastways deepconcern, and in this he was disappointed. 

"What of him, father?" she asked, approaching. 

"Naught, and that's the rub. It is time we had news, and as none comes, your uncle goes to seek it. "

"Think you that ill can have befallen him?"

Gregory was silent a moment, weighing his answer. Then

"We hope not, sweetheart, " said he. "He may be a prisoner. We last hadnews of him from Worcester, and 'tis a week and more since the battlewas fought there. Should he be a captive, your uncle has sufficientinfluence to obtain his enlargement. "

Cynthia sighed, and moved towards the window. 

"Poor Kenneth, " she murmured gently. "He may be wounded. "

"We shall soon learn, " he answered. His disappointment grew keener;where he had looked for grief he found no more than an expression ofpitying concern. Nor was his disappointment lessened when, after a spellof thoughtful silence, she began to comment upon the condition of thetrees in the park below. Gregory had it in his mind to chide her forthis lack of interest in the fate of her intended husband, but he letthe impulse pass unheeded. After all, if Kenneth lived she should marryhim. Hitherto she had been docile and willing enough to be guided byhim; she had even displayed a kindness for Kenneth; no doubt she woulddo so again when Joseph returned with him--unless he were among theWorcester slain, in which case, perhaps, it would prove best that hisfate was not to cause her any prostration of grief. 

"The sky is heavy, father, " said Cynthia from the window. "Poor uncle!He will have rough weather for his journey. "

"I rejoice that someone wastes pity on poor uncle, " growled Joseph, who re-entered, "this uncle whom your father drives out of doors in allweathers to look for his daughter's truant lover. "

Cynthia smiled upon him. 

"It is heroic of you, uncle. "

"There, there, " he grumbled, "I shall do my best to find the laggard, lest those pretty eyes should weep away their beauty. "

Gregory's glance reproved this sneer of Joseph's, whereupon Joseph drewclose to him:

"Broken-hearted, is she not?" he muttered, to which Gregory returned noanswer. 

An hour later, as Joseph climbed into his saddle, he turned to hisbrother again, and directing his eyes upon the girl, who stood pattingthe glossy neck of his nag:

"Come, now, " said he, "you see that matters are as I said. "

"And yet, " replied Gregory sternly, "I hope to see you return with theboy. It will be better so. "

Joseph shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. Then, taking leave of hisbrother and his niece, he rode out with two grooms at his heels, andtook the road South. 

CHAPTER XII. THE HOUSE THAT WAS ROLAND MARLEIGH'S

It was high noon next day, and Gregory Ashburn was taking the air uponthe noble terrace of Castle Marleigh, when the beat of hoofs, rapidlyapproaching up the avenue, arrested his attention. He stopped in hiswalk, and, turning, sought to discover who came. His first thought wasof his brother; his second, of Kenneth. Through the half-denuded treeshe made out two mounted figures, riding side by side; and from the factof there being two, he adduced that this could not be Joseph returning. 

Even as he waited he was joined by Cynthia, who took her stand besidehim, and voiced the inquiry that was in his mind. But her father couldno more than answer that he hoped it might be Kenneth. 

Then the horsemen passed from behind the screen of trees and came intothe clearing before the terrace, and unto the waiting glances of Ashburnand his daughter was revealed a curiously bedraggled and ill-assortedpair. The one riding slightly in advance looked like a Puritan of themeaner sort, in his battered steeple-hat and cloak of rusty black. Theother was closely wrapped in a red mantle, uptilted behind by a sword ofprodigious length, and for all that his broad, grey hat was unadornedby any feather, it was set at a rakish, ruffling, damn-me angle thatpronounced him no likely comrade for the piously clad youth beside him. 

But beneath that brave red cloak--alack!--as was presently seen whenthey dismounted, that gentleman was in a sorry plight. He wore a leatherjerkin, so cut and soiled that any groom might have disdained it; a pairof green breeches, frayed to their utmost; and coarse boots of untannedleather, adorned by rusty spurs. 

On the terrace Gregory paused a moment to call his groom to attendthe new-comers, then he passed down the steps to greet Kenneth withboisterous effusion. Behind him, slow and stately as a woman of twiceher years, came Cynthia. Calm was her greeting of her lover, containedin courteous expressions of pleasure at beholding him safe, andsuffering him to kiss her hand. 

In the background, his sable locks uncovered out of deference to thelady, stood Sir Crispin, his face pale and haggard, his lips parted, andhis grey eyes burning as they fell again, after the lapse of years, uponthe stones of this his home--the castle to which he was now come, hat inhand, to beg for shelter. 

Gregory was speaking, his hands resting upon Kenneth's shoulder. 

"We have been much exercised concerning you, lad, " he was saying. "Wealmost feared the worst, and yesterday Joseph left us to seek news ofyou at Cromwell's hands. Where have you tarried?"

"Anon, sir; you shall learn anon. The story is a long one. "

"True; you will be tired, and perchance you would first rest a while. Cynthia will see to it. But what scarecrow have you there? Whattatterdemalion is this?" he cried, pointing to Galliard. He had imaginedhim a servant, but the dull flush that overspread Sir Crispin's facetold him of his error. 

"I would have you know, sir, " Crispin began, with some heat, whenKenneth interrupted him. 

"Tis to this gentleman, sir, that I owe my presence here. He was myfellow-prisoner, and but for his quick wit and stout arm I should bestiff by now. Anon, sir, you shall hear the story of it, and I dareswear it will divert you. This gentleman is Sir Crispin Galliard, latelya captain of horse with whom I served in Middleton's Brigade. "

Crispin bowed low, conscious of the keen scrutiny in which Gregory'seyes were bent upon him. In his heart there arose a fear that, haplyafter all, the years that were sped had not wrought sufficient change inhim. 

"Sir Crispin Galliard, " Ashburn was saying, after the manner of one whois searching his memory. "Galliard, Galliard--not he whom they called'Rakehelly Galliard, ' and who gave us such trouble in the late King'stime?"

Crispin breathed once more. Ashburn's scrutiny was explained. 

"The same, sir, " he answered, with a smile and a fresh bow. "Yourservant, sir; and yours, madam. "

Cynthia looked with interest at the lank, soldierly figure. She, too, had heard--as who had not?--wild stories of this man's achievements. Butof no feat of his had she been told that could rival that of his escapefrom Worcester; and when, that same evening, Kenneth related it, as theysupped, her low-lidded eyes grew very wide, and as they fell on Crispin, admiration had taken now the place of interest. 

Romance swayed as great a portion of her heart as it does of mostwomen's. She loved the poets and their songs of great deeds; and herewas one who, in the light of that which they related of him, was like anincarnation of some hero out of a romancer's ballad. 

Kenneth she never yet had held in over high esteem; but of a sudden, inthe presence of this harsh-featured dog of war, this grim, fierce-eyedruffler, he seemed to fade, despite his comeliness of face and form, into a poor and puny insignificance. And when, presently, he unwiselyrelated how, when in the boat he had fainted, the maiden laughedoutright for very scorn. 

At this plain expression of contempt, her father shot her a quick, uneasy glance. Kenneth stopped short, bringing his narrative abruptly toa close. Reproachfully he looked at her, turning first red, then white, as anger chased annoyance through his soul. Galliard looked on withquiet relish; her laugh had contained that which for days he had carriedin his heart. He drained his bumper slowly, and made no attempt torelieve the awkward silence that sat upon the company. 

Truth to tell, there was emotion enough in the soul of him who was wontto be the life of every board he sat at to hold him silent and evenmoody. 

Here, after eighteen years, was he again in his ancestral home ofMarleigh. But how was he returned? As one who came under a feigned name, to seek from usurping hands a shelter 'neath his own roof; a beggar ofthat from others which it should have been his to grant or to denythose others. As an avenger he came. For justice he came, and armed withretribution; the flame of a hate unspeakable burning in his heart, anddemanding the lives--no less--of those that had destroyed him and his. Yet was he forced to sit a mendicant almost at that board whose head washis by every right; forced to sit and curb his mood, giving no outwardsign of the volcano that boiled and raged within his soul as his eyefell upon the florid, smiling face and portly, well-fed frame of GregoryAshburn. For the time was not yet. He must wait; wait until Joseph'sreturn, so that he might spend his vengeance upon both together. 

Patient had he been for eighteen years, confident that ere he died, ajust and merciful God would give him this for which he lived and waited. Yet now that the season was at hand; now upon the very eve of that forwhich he had so long been patient, a frenzy of impatience fretted him. 

He drank deep that night, and through deep drinking his mannerthawed--for in his cups it was not his to be churlish to friend or foe. Anon Cynthia withdrew; next Kenneth, who went in quest of her. StillCrispin sat on, and drank his host's health above his breath, and hisperdition under it, till in the end Gregory, who never yet had foundhis master at the bottle, grew numb and drowsy, and sat blinking at thetapers. 

Until midnight they remained at table, talking of this and that, andeach understanding little of what the other said. As the last hour ofnight boomed out through the great hall, Gregory spoke of bed. 

"Where do I lie to-night?" asked Crispin. 

"In the northern wing, " answered Gregory with a hiccough. 

"Nay, sir, I protest, " cried Galliard, struggling to his feet, andswaying somewhat as he stood. "I'll sleep in the King's chamber, noneother. "

"The King's chamber?" echoed Gregory, and his face showed the confusedstruggles of his brain. "What know you of the King's chamber?"

"That it faces the east and the sea, and that it is the chamber I lovebest. "

"What can you know of it since, I take it, you have never seen it!"

"Have I not?" he began, in a voice that was awful in its threateningcalm. Then, recollecting himself, and shaking some of the drunkennessfrom him: "In the old days, when the Marleighs were masters here, " hemumbled, "I was often within these walls. Roland Marleigh was my friend. The King's chamber was ever accorded me, and there, for old time's sake, I'll lay these old bones of mine to-night. "

"You were Roland Marleigh's friend?" gasped Gregory. He was very whitenow, and there was a sheen of moisture on his face. The sound of thatname had well-nigh sobered him. It was almost as if the ghost of RolandMarleigh stood before him. His knees were loosened, and he sank backinto the chair from which he had but risen. 

"Aye, I was his friend!" assented Crispin. "Poor Roland! He married yoursister, did he not, and it was thus that, having no issue and the familybeing extinct, Castle Marleigh passed to you?"

"He married our cousin, " Gregory amended. "They were an ill-fatedfamily. "

"Ill-fated, indeed, an all accounts be true, " returned Crispin in amaudlin voice. "Poor Roland! Well, for old time's sake, I'll sleep inthe King's chamber, Master Ashburn. "

"You shall sleep where you list, sir, " answered Gregory, and they rose. 

"Do you look to honour us long at Castle Marleigh, Sir Crispin?" wasGregory's last question before separating from his guest. 

"Nay, sir, 'tis likely I shall go hence to-morrow, " answered Crispin, unmindful of what he said. 

"I trust not, " said Gregory, in accents of relief that belied him. "Afriend of Roland Marleigh's must ever be welcome in the house that wasRoland Marleigh's. "

"The house that was Roland Marleigh's, " Crispin muttered. "Heigho!Life is precarious as the fall of a die at best an ephemeral business. To-night you say the house that was Roland Marleigh's; presently menwill be saying the house that the Ashburns lived--aye, and died--in. Give you good night, Master Ashburn. "

He staggered off, and stumbled up the broad staircase at the headof which a servant now awaited, taper in hand, to conduct him to thechamber he demanded. 

Gregory followed him with a dull, frightened eye. Galliard's halting, thickly uttered words had sounded like a prophecy in his ears. 

CHAPTER XIII. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF KENNETH

When the morrow came, however, Sir Crispin showed no signs of carryingout his proposal of the night before, and departing from CastleMarleigh. Nor, indeed, did he so much as touch upon the subject, bearinghimself rather as one whose sojourn there was to be indefinite. 

Gregory offered no comment upon this; through what he had done forKenneth they were under a debt to Galliard, and whilst he was a fugitivefrom the Parliament's justice it would ill become Gregory to hasten hisdeparture. Moreover, Gregory recalled little or nothing of the wordsthat had passed between them in their cups, save a vague memory thatCrispin had said that he had once known Roland Marleigh. 

Kenneth was content that Galliard should lie idle, and not call upon himto go forth again to lend him the aid he had pledged himself to renderwhen Crispin should demand it. He marvelled, as the days wore on, thatGalliard should appear to have forgotten that task of his, and that heshould make no shift to set about it. For the rest, however, it troubledhim but little; enough preoccupation did he find in Cynthia's dailyincreasing coldness. Upon all the fine speeches that he made her sheturned an idle ear, or if she replied at all it was but petulantly tointerrupt them, to call him a man of great words and small deeds. Allthat he did she found ill done, and told him of it. His sober, godlygarments of sombre hue afforded her the first weapon of scorn wherewithto wound him. A crow, she dubbed him; a canting, psalm-chantinghypocrite; a Scripture-monger, and every other contumelious epithet oflike import that she should call to mind. He heard her in amazement. 

"Is it for you, Cynthia, " he cried out in his surprise, "the child of aGod-fearing house, to mock the outward symbols of my faith?"

"A faith, " she laughed, "that is all outward symbols and naught besides;all texts and mournings and nose-twangings. "

"Cynthia!" he exclaimed, in horror. 

"Go your ways, sir, " she answered, half in jest, half in earnest. "Whatneed hath a true faith of outward symbols? It is a matter that liesbetween your God and yourself, and it is your heart He will look at, not your coat. Why, then, without becoming more acceptable in His eyes, shall you but render yourself unsightly in the eyes of man?"

Kenneth's cheeks were flushed with anger. From the terrace where theywalked he let his glance roam towards the avenue that split the park intwain. Up this at that moment, with the least suspicion of a swaggerin his gait, Sir Crispin Galliard was approaching leisurely; he wore aclaret-coloured doublet edged with silver lace, and a grey hat deckedwith a drooping red feather--which garments, together with the restof his apparel, he had drawn from the wardrobe of Gregory Ashburn. His advent afforded Kenneth the retort he needed. Pointing him out toCynthia:

"Would you rather, " he cried hotly, "have me such a man as that?"

"And, pray, why not?" she taunted him. "Leastways, you would then be aman. "

"If, madam, a debauchee, a drunkard, a profligate, a brawler be yourconception of a man, I would in faith you did not account me one. "

"And what, sir, would you sooner elect to be accounted?"

"A gentleman, madam, " he answered pompously. 

"I think, " said she quietly, "that you are in as little danger ofbecoming the one as the other. A gentleman does not slander a man behindhis back, particularly when he owes that man his life. Kenneth, I amashamed of you. "

"I do not slander, " he insisted hotly. "You yourself know of the drunkenexcess wherewith three nights ago he celebrated his coming to CastleMarleigh. Nor do I forget what I owe him, and payment is to be made ina manner you little know of. If I said of him what I did, it was but inanswer to your taunts. Think you I could endure comparison with such aman as that? Know you what name the Royalists give him? They call himthe Tavern Knight. "

She looked him over with an eye of quiet scorn. 

"And how, sir, do they call you? The pulpit knight? Or is it the knightof the white feather? Mr. Stewart, you weary me. I would have a man whowith a man's failings hath also a man's redeeming virtues of honesty, chivalry, and courage, and a record of brave deeds, rather than one whohas nothing of the man save the coat--that outward symbol you lay suchstore by. "

His handsome, weak face was red with fury. 

"Since that is so, madam, " he choked, "I leave you to your swaggering, ruffling Cavalier. "

And, without so much as a bow, he swung round on his heel and left her. It was her turn to grow angry now, and well it was for him that he hadnot tarried. She dwelt with scorn upon his parting taunt, bethinkingherself that in truth she had exaggerated her opinions of Galliard'smerits. Her feelings towards that ungodly gentleman were rather of pitythan aught else. A brave, ready-witted man she knew him for, as muchfrom the story of his escape from Worcester as for the air that clungto him despite his swagger, and she deplored that one possessing theseennobling virtues should have fallen notwithstanding upon such evil waysas those which Crispin trod. Some day, perchance, when she should cometo be better acquainted with him, she would seek to induce him to mendhis course. 

Such root did this thought take in her mind that soon thereafter--andwithout having waited for that riper acquaintance which at first she hadheld necessary--she sought to lead their talk into the channels of thisdelicate subject. But he as sedulously confined it to trivial matterwhenever she approached him in this mood, fencing himself about with awall of cold reserve that was not lightly to be overthrown. In thishis conscience was at work. Cynthia was the flaw in the satisfaction hemight have drawn from the contemplation of the vengeance he was there towreak. He beheld her so pure, so sweet and fresh, that he marvelled howshe came to be the daughter of Gregory Ashburn. His heart smote him atthe thought of how she--the innocent--must suffer with the guilty, andat the contemplation of the sorrow which he must visit upon her. Out ofthis sprang a constraint when in her company, for other than stiff andformal he dared not be lest he should deem himself no better than theIscariot. 

During the first days he had pent at Marleigh, he had been impatient forJoseph Ashburn's return. Now he found himself hoping each morning thatJoseph might not come that day. 

A courier reached Gregory from Windsor with a letter wherein his brothertold him that the Lord General, not being at the castle, he was gone onto London in quest of him. And Gregory, lacking the means to inform himthat the missing Kenneth was already returned, was forced to possess hissoul in patience until his brother, having learnt what was to be learntof Cromwell, should journey home. 

And so the days sped on, and a week wore itself out in peace at CastleMarleigh, none dreaming of the volcano on which they stood. Each nightCrispin and Gregory sat together at the board after Kenneth and Cynthiahad withdrawn, and both drank deep--the one for the vice of it, theother (as he had always done) to seek forgetfulness. 

He needed it now more than ever, for he feared that the consideration ofCynthia might yet unman him. Had she scorned and avoided him and havingsuch evidences of his ways of life he marvelled that she did not--hemight have allowed his considerations of her to weigh less heavily. Asit was, she sought him out, nor seemed rebuffed at his efforts to evadeher, and in every way she manifested a kindliness that drove him almostto the point of despair, and well-nigh to hating her. 

Kenneth, knowing naught of the womanly purpose that actuated her, and seeing but the outward signs, which, with ready jealousy, hemisconstrued and magnified, grew sullen and churlish to her, toGalliard, and even to Gregory. 

For hours he would mope alone, nursing his jealous mood, as though inthis clownish fashion matters were to be mended. Did Cynthia but speakto Crispin, he scowled; did Crispin answer her, he grit his teeth at thecovert meaning wherewith his fancy invested Crispin's tones; whilst didthey chance to laugh together--a contingency that fortunately for hissanity was rare--he writhed in fury. He was a man transformed, and attimes there was murder in his heart. Had he been a swordsman of morethan moderate skill and dared to pit himself against the Tavern Knight, blood would have been shed in Marleigh Park betwixt them. 

It seemed at last as if with his insensate jealousy all the evilhumours that had lain dormant in the boy were brought to the surface, to overwhelm his erstwhile virtues--if qualities that have bigotry for aparent may truly be accounted virtues. 

He cast off, not abruptly, but piecemeal, those outward symbols--hissombre clothes. First 'twas his hat he exchanged for a feather-trimmedbeaver of more sightly hue; then those stiff white bands that reeked ofsanctity and cant for a collar of fine point; next it was his coat thattook on a worldly edge of silver lace. And so, little by little, stepby step, was the metamorphosis effected, until by the end of the weekhe came forth a very butterfly of fashion--a gallant, dazzling Cavalier. Out of a stern, forbidding Covenanter he was transformed in a few daysinto a most outrageous fop. He walked in an atmosphere of musk that hehimself exhaled; his fair hair--that a while ago had hung so straightand limp--was now twisted into monstrous curls, a bunch of which weregathered by his right ear in a ribbon of pale blue silk. 

Galliard noted the change in amazement, yet, knowing to what folliesyouth is driven when it woos, he accounted Cynthia responsible for it, and laughed in his sardonic way, whereat the boy would blush and scowlin one. Gregory, too, looked on and laughed, setting it down to thesame cause. Even Cynthia smiled, whereat the Tavern Knight was driven toponder. 

With a courtier's raiment Kenneth put on, too, a courtier's ways; hegrew mincing and affected in his speech, and he--whose utterance a whileago had been marked by a scriptural flavour--now set it off with some ofGalliard's less unseemly oaths. 

Since it was a ruffling gallant Cynthia required, he swore that aruffling gallant should she find him; nor had he wit enough to seethat his ribbons, his fopperies, and his capers served but to make himridiculous in her eyes. He did indeed perceive, however, that in spiteof this wondrous transformation, he made no progress in her favour. 

"What signify these fripperies?" she asked him, one day, "any more thandid your coat of decent black? Are these also outward symbols?"

"You may take them for such, madam, " he answered sulkily. "You liked menot as I was--"

"And I like you less as you are, " she broke in. 

"Cynthia, you mock me, " he cried angrily. 

"Now, Heaven forbid! I do but mark the change, " she answered airily. "These scented clothes are but a masquerade, even as your coat of blackand your cant were a masquerade. Then you simulated godliness; nowyou simulate Heaven knows what. But now, as then, it is no more than asimulation, a pretence of something that you are not. "

He left her in a pet, and went in search of Gregory, into whose earhe poured the story of his woes that had their source in Cynthia'sunkindness. From this resulted a stormy interview 'twixt Cynthia and herfather, in which Cynthia at last declared that she would not be weddedto a fop. 

Gregory shrugged his shoulders and laughed cynically, replying that itwas the way of young men to be fools, and that through folly lay theroad to wisdom. 

"Be that as it may, " she answered him with spirit, "this follytranscends all bounds. Master Stewart may return to his Scottishheather; at Castle Marleigh he is wasting time. "

"Cynthia!" he cried. 

"Father, " she pleaded, "why be angry? You would not have me marryagainst the inclinations of my heart? You would not have me wedded to aman whom I despise?"

"By what right do you despise him?" he demanded, his brow dark. 

"By the right of the freedom of my thoughts--the only freedom that awoman knows. For the rest it seems she is but a chattel; of no moreconsideration to a man than his ox or his ass with which the Scripturesrank her--a thing to be given or taken, bought or sold, as others shalldecree. "

"Child, child, what know you of these things?" he cried. "You areoverwrought, sweetheart. " And with the promise to wait until a calmerframe of mind in her should be more propitious to what he wished to sayfurther on this score, he left her. 

She went out of doors in quest of solitude among the naked trees ofthe park; instead she found Sir Crispin, seated deep in thought upon afallen trunk. 

Through the trees she espied him as she approached, whilst the rustleof her gown announced to him her coming. He rose as she drew nigh, and, doffing his hat, made shift to pass on. 

"Sir Crispin, " she called, detaining him. He turned. 

"Your servant, Mistress Cynthia. "

"Are you afraid of me, Sir Crispin?"

"Beauty, madam, is wont to inspire courage rather than fear, " heanswered, with a smile. 

"That, sir, is an evasion, not an answer. "

"If read aright, Mistress Cynthia, it is also an answer. "

"That you do not fear me?"

"It is not a habit of mine. "

"Why, then, have you avoided me these three days past?"

Despite himself Crispin felt his breath quickening--quickening witha pleasure that he sought not to account for--at the thought that sheshould have marked his absence from her side. 

"Because perhaps if I did not, " he answered slowly, "you might come toavoid me. I am a proud man, Mistress Cynthia. "

"Satan, sir, was proud, but his pride led him to perdition. "

"So indeed may mine, " he answered readily, "since it leads me from you. "

"Nay, sir, " she laughed, "you go from me willingly enough. "

"Not willingly, Cynthia. Oh, not willingly, " he began. Then of a suddenhe checked his tongue, and asked himself what he was saying. With ahalf-laugh and a courtier manner, he continued, "Of two evils, madam, wemust choose the lesser one. "

"Madam, " she echoed, disregarding all else that he had said. "It is anugly word, and but a moment back you called me Cynthia. "

"Twas a liberty that methought my grey hairs warranted, and for whichyou should have reproved me. "

"You have not grey hairs enough to warrant it, Sir Crispin, " sheanswered archly. "But what if even so I account it no liberty?"

The heavy lids were lifted from her eyes, and as their glance, frank andkindly, met his, he trembled. Then, with a polite smile, he bowed. 

"I thank you for the honour. "

For a moment she looked at him in a puzzled way, then moved past him, and as he stood, stiffly erect, watching her graceful figure, he thoughtthat she was about to leave him, and was glad of it. But ere she hadtaken half a dozen steps:

"Sir Crispin, " said she, looking back at him over her shoulder, "I amwalking to the cliffs. "

Never was a man more plainly invited to become an escort; but he ignoredit. A sad smile crept into his harsh face. 

"I shall tell Kenneth if I see him, " said he. 

At that she frowned. 

"But I do not want him, " she protested. "Sooner would I go alone. "

"Why, then, madam, I'll tell nobody. "

Was ever man so dull? she asked herself. 

"There is a fine view from the cliffs, " said she. 

"I have always thought so, " he agreed. 

She inclined to call him a fool; yet she restrained herself. She had animpulse to go her way without him; but, then, she desired his company, and Cynthia was unused to having her desires frustrated. So finding himimpervious to suggestion:

"Will you not come with me?" she asked at last, point-blank. 

"Why, yes, if you wish it, " he answered without alacrity. 

"You may remain, sir. "

Her offended tone aroused him now to the understanding that he wasimpolite. Contrite he stood beside her in a moment. 

"With your permission, mistress, I will go with you. I am a dull fellow, and to-day I know not what mood is on me. So sorry a one that I fearedI should be poor company. Still, if you'll endure me, I'll do my best toprove entertaining. "

"By no means, " she answered coldly. "I seek not the company of dullfellows. " And she was gone. 

He stood where she had left him, and breathed a most ungallant prayer ofthanks. Next he laughed softly to himself, a laugh that was woeful withbitterness. 

"Fore George!" he muttered, "it is all that was wanting!"

He reseated himself upon the fallen tree, and there he set himself toreflect, and to realize that he, war-worn and callous, come to CastleMarleigh on such an errand as was his, should wax sick at the verythought of it for the sake of a chit of a maid, with a mind to make amock and a toy of him. Into his mind there entered even the possibilityof flight, forgetful of the wrongs he had suffered, abandoning thevengeance he had sworn. Then with an oath he stemmed his thoughts. 

"God in heaven, am I a boy, beardless and green?" he asked himself. "AmI turned seventeen again, that to look into a pair of eyes should makeme forget all things but their existence?" Then in a burst of passion:"Would to Heaven, " he muttered, "they had left me stark on WorcesterField!"

He rose abruptly, and set out to walk aimlessly along, until suddenly aturn in the path brought him face to face with Cynthia. She hailed himwith a laugh. 

"Sir laggard, I knew that willy-nilly you would follow me, " she cried. And he, taken aback, could not but smile in answer, and profess that shehad conjectured rightly. 

CHAPTER XIV. THE HEART OF CYNTHIA ASHBURN

Side by side stepped that oddly assorted pair along--the maiden whosesoul was as pure and fresh as the breeze that blew upon them from thesea, and the man whose life years ago had been marred by a sorrow, thequest of whose forgetfulness had led him through the mire of untold sin;the girl upon the threshold of womanhood, her life all before her andseeming to her untainted mind a joyous, wholesome business; the manmidway on his ill-starred career, his every hope blighted save the oneodious hope of vengeance, which made him cling to a life he had provedworthless and ugly, and that otherwise he had likely enough cast fromhim. And as they walked:

"Sir Crispin, " she ventured timidly, "you are unhappy, are you not?"

Startled by her words and the tone of them, Galliard turned his headthat he might observe her. 

"I, unhappy?" he laughed; and it was a laugh calculated to acknowledgethe fitness of her question, rather than to refute it as he intended. "Am I a clown, Cynthia, to own myself unhappy at such a season and whileyou honour me with your company?"

She made a wry face in protest that he fenced with her. 

"You are happy, then?" she challenged him. 

"What is happiness?" quoth he, much as Pilate may have questioned whatwas truth. Then before she could reply he hastened to add: "I have notbeen quite so happy these many years. "

"It is not of the present moment that I speak, " she answeredreprovingly, for she scented no more than a compliment in his words, "but of your life. "

Now either was he imbued with a sense of modesty touching the deedsof that life of his, or else did he wisely realize that no theme couldthere he less suited to discourse upon with an innocent maid. 

"Mistress Cynthia, " said he as though he had not heard her question, "Iwould say a word to you concerning Kenneth. "

At that she turned upon him with a pout. 

"But it is concerning yourself that I would have you talk. It is notnice to disobey a lady. Besides, I have little interest in MasterStewart. "

"To have little interest in a future husband augurs ill for the timewhen he shall come to be your husband. "

"I thought that you, at least, understood me. Kenneth will never behusband of mine, Sir Crispin. "

"Cynthia!" he exclaimed. 

"Oh, lackaday! Am I to wed a doll?" she demanded. "Is he--is he a man amaid may love, Sir Crispin?"

"Indeed, had you but seen the half of life that I have seen, " said heunthinkingly, "it might amaze you what manner of man a maid may love--orat least may marry. Come, Cynthia, what fault do you find with him?"

"Why, every fault. "

He laughed in unbelief. 

"And whom are we to blame for all these faults that have turned you soagainst him?"

"Whom?"

"Yourself, Cynthia. You use him ill, child. If his behaviour has beenextravagant, you are to blame. You are severe with him, and he, in hisrash endeavours to present himself in a guise that shall render himcommendable in your eyes, has overstepped discretion. "

"Has my father bidden you to tell me this?"

"Since when have I enjoyed your father's confidence to that degree? No, no, Cynthia. I plead the boy's cause to you because--I know not becauseof what. "

"It is ill to plead without knowing why. Let us forget the valiantKenneth. They tell me, Sir Crispin"--and she turned her glorious eyesupon him in a manner that must have witched a statue into answeringher--"that in the Royal army you were known as the Tavern Knight. "

"They tell you truly. What of that?"

"Well, what of it? Do you blush at the very thought?"

"I blush?" He blinked, and his eyes were full of humour as they met hergrave--almost sorrowing glance. Then a full-hearted peal of laughterbroke from him, and scared a flight of gulls from the rocks ofSheringham Hithe below. 

"Oh, Cynthia! You'll kill me!" he gasped. "Picture to yourself thisCrispin Galliard blushing and giggling like a schoolgirl beset by herfirst lover. Picture it, I say! As well and as easily might you pictureold Lucifer warbling a litany for the edification of a Nonconformistparson. "

Her eyes were severe in their reproach. 

"It is always so with you. You laugh and jest and make a mock ofeverything. Such I doubt not has been your way from the commencement, and 'tis thus that you are come to this condition. "

Again he laughed, but this time it was in bitterness. 

"Nay, sweet mistress, you are wrong--you are very wrong; it was notalways thus. Time was--" He paused. "Bah! 'Tis the coward cries "timewas"! Leave me the past, Cynthia. It is dead, and of the dead we shouldspeak no ill, " he jested. 

"What is there in your past?" she insisted, despite his words. "Whatis there in it so to have warped a character that I am assured wasonce--is, indeed, still--of lofty and noble purpose? What is it hasbrought you to the level you occupy--you who were born to lead; youwho--"

"Have done, child. Have done, " he begged. 

"Nay, tell me. Let us sit here. " And taking hold of his sleeve, she satherself upon a mound, and made room for him beside her on the grass. With a half-laugh and a sigh he obeyed her, and there, on the cliff, inthe glow of the September sun, he took his seat at her side. 

A silence prevailed about them, emphasized rather than broken by thedroning chant of a fisherman mending his nets on the beach below, theintermittent plash of the waves on the shingle, and the scream of thegulls that circled overhead. Before the eyes of his flesh was stretcheda wide desert of sky and water, and before the eyes of his mind thehopeless desert of his thirty-eight years. 

He was almost tempted to speak. The note of sympathy in her voiceallured him, and sympathy was to him as drink to one who perishes ofthirst. A passionate, indefinable longing impelled him to pour out thestory that in Worcester he had related unto Kenneth, and thus to sethimself better in her eyes; to have her realize indeed that if he wascome so low it was more the fault of others than his own. The temptationdrew him at a headlong pace, to be checked at last by the memory thatthose others who had brought him to so sorry a condition were her ownpeople. The humour passed. He laughed softly, and shook his head. 

"There is nothing that I can tell you, child. Let us rather talk ofKenneth. "

"I do not wish to talk of Kenneth. "

"Nay, but you must. Willy-nilly must you. Think you it is only awar-worn, hard-drinking, swashbuckling ruffler that can sin? Does it notalso occur to you that even a frail and tender little maid may do wrongas well?"

"What wrong have I done?" she cried in consternation. 

"A grievous wrong to this poor lad. Can you not realize how the onlydesire that governs him is the laudable one of appearing favourably inyour eyes?"

"That desire gives rise, then, to curious manifestations. "

"He is mistaken in the means he adopts, that is all. In his heart hisone aim is to win your esteem, and, after all, it is the sentiment thatmatters, not its manifestation. Why, then, are you unkind to him?"

"But I am not unkind. Or is it unkindness to let him see that I mislikehis capers? Would it not be vastly more unkind to ignore them andencourage him to pursue their indulgence? I have no patience with him. "

"As for those capers, I am endeavouring to show you that you yourselfhave driven him to them. "

"Sir Crispin, " she cried out, "you grow tiresome. "

"Aye, " said he, "I grow tiresome. I grow tiresome because I preach ofduty. Marry, it is in truth a tiresome topic. "

"How duty? Of what do you talk?" And a flush of incipient anger spreadnow on her fair cheek. 

"I will be clearer, " said he imperturbably. "This lad is your betrothed. He is at heart a good lad, an honourable and honest lad--at times haplyover-honest and over-honourable; but let that be. To please a whim, acaprice, you set yourself to flout him, as is the way of your sex whenyou behold a man your utter slave. From this--being all unversed inthe obliquity of woman--he conceives, poor boy, that he no longer findsfavour in your eyes, and to win back this, the only thing that in theworld he values, he behaves foolishly. You flout him anew, and becauseof it. He is as jealous with you as a hen with her brood. "

"Jealous?" echoed Cynthia. 

"Why, yes, jealous; and so far does he go as to be jealous even of me, "he cried, with infinitely derisive relish. "Think of it--he is jealousof me! Jealous of him they call the Tavern Knight!"

She did think of it as he bade her. And by thinking she stumbled upon adiscovery that left her breathless. 

Strange how we may bear a sentiment in our hearts without so much assuspecting its existence, until suddenly a chance word shall so urge itinto life that it reveals itself with unmistakable distinctness. Withher the revelation began in a vague wonder at the scorn with whichCrispin invested the notion that Kenneth should have cause for jealousyon his score. Was it, she asked herself, so monstrously unnatural? Thenin a flash the answer came--and it was, that far from being a matter forderision, such an attitude in Kenneth lacked not for foundation. 

In that moment she knew that it was because of Crispin; because of thisman who spoke with such very scorn of self, that Kenneth had become inher eyes so mean and unworthy a creature. Loved him she haply never had, but leastways she had tolerated--been even flattered by--his wooing. By contrasting him now with Crispin she had grown to despise him. Hisweakness, his pusillanimity, his meannesses of soul, stood out in sharprelief by contrast with the masterful strength and the high spirit ofSir Crispin. 

So easily may our ideals change that the very graces of face and formthat a while ago had pleased her in Kenneth, seemed now effeminateattributes, well-attuned to a vacillating, purposeless mind. Far greaterbeauty did her eyes behold in this grimfaced soldier of fortune; theman as firm of purpose as he was upright of carriage; gloomy, proud, andreckless; still young, yet past the callow age of adolescence. Sincethe day of his coming to Castle Marleigh she had brought herself to lookupon him as a hero stepped from the romancers' tales that in secret shehad read. The mystery that seemed to envelop him; those hints at a pastthat was not good--but the measure of whose evil in her pure innocenceshe could not guess; his very melancholy, his misfortunes, and the deedsshe had heard assigned to him, all had served to fire her fancy and morebesides, although, until that moment, she knew it not. 

Subconsciously all this had long dwelt in her mind. And now of asudden that self-deriding speech of Crispin's had made her aware of itspresence and its meaning. 

She loved him. That men said his life had not been nice, that he wasa soldier of fortune, little better than an adventurer, a man of noworldly weight, were matters of no moment then to her. She loved him. She knew it now because he had mockingly bidden her to think whetherKenneth had cause to be jealous of him, and because upon thinking of it, she found that did Kenneth know what was in her heart, he must have morethan cause. 

She loved him with that rare love that will urge a woman to the lastsacrifice a man may ask; a love that gives and gives, and seeks nothingin return; that impels a woman to follow the man at his bidding, be hisway through the world cast in places never so rugged; cleaving to himwhere all besides shall have abandoned him; and, however dire his lot, asking of God no greater blessing than that of sharing it. 

And to such a love as this Crispin was blind--blind to the verypossibility of its existence; so blind that he laughed to scorn the ideaof a puny milksop being jealous of him. And so, while she sat, her soulall mastered by her discovery, her face white and still for very awe ofit, he to whom this wealth was given, pursued the odious task of wooingher for another. 

"You have observed--you must have observed this insensate jealousy, " hewas saying, "and how do you allay it? You do not. On the contrary, youexcite it at every turn. You are exciting it now by having--and I dareswear for no other purpose--lured me to walk with you, to sit here withyou and preach your duty to you. And when, through jealousy, he shallhave flown to fresh absurdities, shall you regret your conduct and thefruits it has borne? Shall you pity the lad, and by kindness induce himto be wiser? No. You will mock and taunt him into yet worse displays. And through these displays, which are--though you may not have bethoughtyou of it--of your own contriving, you will conclude that he is no fitmate for you, and there will be heart-burnings, and years hence perhapsanother Tavern Knight, whose name will not be Crispin Galliard. "

She had listened with bent head; indeed, so deeply rapt by herdiscovery, that she had but heard the half of what he said. Now, of asudden, she looked up, and meeting his glance:

"Is--is it a woman's fault that you are as you are?"

"No, it is not. But how does that concern the case of Kenneth?"

"It does not. I was but curious. I was not thinking of Kenneth. "

He stared at her, dumfounded. Had he been talking of Kenneth to her withsuch eloquence and such fervour, that she should calmly tell him as hepaused that it was not of Kenneth she had been thinking?

"You will think of him, Cynthia?" he begged. "You will bethink you tooof what I have said, and by being kinder and more indulgent with thisyouth you shall make him grow into a man you may take pride in. Dealfairly with him, child, and if anon you find you cannot truly love him, then tell him so. But tell him kindly and frankly, instead of using himas you are doing. "

She was silent a moment, and in their poignancy her feelings went verynear to anger. Presently:

"I would, Sir Crispin, you could hear him talk of you, " said she. 

"He talks ill, not a doubt of it, and like enough he has good cause. "

"Yet you saved his life. "

The words awoke Crispin, the philosopher of love, to realities. Herecalled the circumstances of his saving Kenneth, and the price the boywas to pay for that service; and it suddenly came to him that it waswasted breath to plead Kenneth's cause with Cynthia, when by his ownfuture actions he was, himself, more than likely to destroy the boy'severy hope of wedding her. The irony of his attitude smote him hard, and he rose abruptly. The sun hung now a round, red globe upon the verybrink of the sea. 

"Hereafter he may have little cause to thank me, " muttered he. "Come, Mistress Cynthia, it grows late. "

She rose in mechanical obedience, and together they retraced their stepsin silence, save for the stray word exchanged at intervals touchingmatters of no moment. 

But he had not advocated Kenneth's cause in vain, for all that he littlerecked what his real argument had been, what influences he had evokedto urge her to make her peace with the lad. A melancholy listlessness ofmind possessed her now. Crispin did not see, never would see, what wasin her heart, and it might not be hers to show him. The life that mighthave signified was not to be lived, and since that was so it seemed tomatter little what befell. 

It was thus that when on the morrow her father returned to the subject, she showed herself tractable and docile out of her indifference, and toGregory she appeared not averse to listen to what he had to advancein the boy's favour. Anon Kenneth's own humble pleading, allied to hiscontrite and sorrowful appearance, were received by her with that sameindifference, as also with indifference did she allow him later to kissher hand and assume the flattering belief that he was rehabilitated inher favour. 

But pale grew Mistress Cynthia's cheeks, and sad her soul. Wistful shewaxed, sighing at every turn, until it seemed to her--as haply it hathseemed to many a maid--that all her life must she waste in vain sighsover a man who gave no single thought to her. 

CHAPTER XV. JOSEPH'S RETURN

On his side Kenneth strove hard during the days that followed to righthimself in her eyes. But so headlong was he in the attempt, andso misguided, that presently he overshot his mark by dropping anunflattering word concerning Crispin, whereby he attributed to theTavern Knight's influence and example the degenerate change that had oflate been wrought in him. 

Cynthia's eyes grew hard as he spoke, and had he been wise he had betterserved his cause by talking in another vein. But love and jealousyhad so addled what poor brains the Lord had bestowed upon him, that hefloundered on, unmindful of any warning that took not the blunt shapeof words. At length, however, she stemmed the flow of invective that hislips poured forth. 

"Have I not told you already, Kenneth, that it better becomes agentleman not to slander the man to whom he owes his life? In fact, thata gentleman would scorn such an action?"

As he had protested before, so did he protest now, that what he haduttered was no slander. And in his rage and mortification at the way sheused him, and for which he now bitterly upbraided her, he was very nearthe point of tears, like the blubbering schoolboy that at heart he was. 

"And as for the debt, madam, " he cried, striking the oaken table of thehall with his clenched hand, "it is a debt that shall be paid, a debtwhich this gentleman whom you defend would not permit me to contractuntil I had promised payment--aye, 'fore George!--and with interest, forin the payment I may risk my very life. "

"I see no interest in that, since you risk nothing more than what youowe him, " she answered, with a disdain that brought the impendingtears to his eyes. But if he lacked the manliness to restrain them, hepossessed at least the shame to turn his back and hide them from her. "But tell me, sir, " she added, her curiosity awakened, "if I am tojudge, what was the nature of this bargain?"

He was silent for a moment, and took a turn in the hall--masteringhimself to speak--his hands clasped behind his back, and his eyes benttowards the polished floor which the evening sunlight, filtered throughthe gules of the leaded windows, splashed here and there with a crimsonstain. She sat in the great leathern chair at the head of the board, and, watching him, waited. 

He was debating whether he was bound to secrecy in the matter, and inthe end he resolved that he was not. Thereupon, pausing before her, he succinctly told the story Crispin had related to him that night inWorcester--the story of a great wrong, that none but a craven could haveleft unavenged. He added nothing to it, subtracted nothing from it, buttold the tale as it had been told to him on that dreadful night, thememory of which had still power to draw a shudder from him. 

Cynthia sat with parted lips and eager eyes, drinking in that touchingnarrative of suffering that was rather as some romancer's fabricationthan a true account of what a living man had undergone. Now with sorrowand pity in her heart and countenance, now with anger and loathing, shelistened until he had done, and even when he ceased speaking, and flunghimself into the nearest chair, she sat on in silence for a spell. 

Then of a sudden she turned a pair of flashing eyes upon the boy, and intones charged with a scorn ineffable:

"You dare, " she cried, "to speak of that man as you do, knowing allthis? Knowing what he has suffered, you dare to rail in his absenceagainst those sins to which his misfortunes have driven him? How, thinkyou, would it have fared with you, you fool, had you stood in the shoesof this unfortunate? Had you fallen on your craven knees, and thankedthe Lord for allowing you to keep your miserable life? Had you succumbedto the blows of fate with a whine of texts upon your lips? Who are you?"she went on, rising, breathless in her wrath, which caused him to recoilin sheer affright before her. "Who are you, and what are you, thatknowing what you know of this man's life, you dare to sit in judgmentupon his actions and condemn them? Answer me, you fool!"

But never a word had he wherewith to meet that hail of angry, contemptuous questions. The answer that had been so ready to his lipsthat night at Worcester, when, in a milder form the Tavern Knight hadset him the same question, he dared hot proffer now. The retort that SirCrispin had not cause enough in the evil of others, which had wreckedhis life, to risk the eternal damnation of his soul, he dared no longerutter. Glibly enough had he said to that stern man that which he darednot say now to this sterner beauty. Perhaps it was fear of her thatmade him dumb, perhaps that at last he knew himself for what he was bycontrast with the man whose vices he had so heartily despised a whileago. 

Shrinking back before her anger, he racked his shallow mind in vain fora fitting answer. But ere he had found one, a heavy step sounded in thegallery that overlooked the hall, and a moment later Gregory Ashburndescended. His face was ghastly white, and a heavy frown furrowed thespace betwixt his brows. 

In the fleeting glance she bestowed upon her father, she remarked notthe disorder of his countenance; whilst as for Kenneth, he had enough tohold his attention for the time. 

Gregory's advent set an awkward constraint upon them, nor had he anyword to say as he came heavily up the hall. 

At the lower end of the long table he paused, and resting his hand uponthe board, he seemed on the point of speaking when of a sudden a soundreached him that caused him to draw a sharp breath; it was the rumble ofwheels and the crack of a whip. 

"It is Joseph!" he cried, in a voice the relief of which was so markedthat Cynthia noticed it. And with that exclamation he flung past them, and out through the doorway to meet his brother so opportunely returned. 

He reached the terrace steps as the coach pulled up, and the lean figureof Joseph Ashburn emerged from it. 

"So, Gregory, " he grumbled for greeting, "it was on a fool's errand yousent me, after all. That knave, your messenger, found me in London atlast when I had outworn my welcome at Whitehall. But, 'swounds, man, " hecried, remarking the pallor, of his brother's face, "what ails thee?"

"I have news for you, Joseph, " answered Gregory, in a voice that shook. 

"It is not Cynthia?" he inquired. "Nay, for there she stands-and herpretty lover by her side. 'Slife, what a coxcomb the lad's grown. "

And with that he hastened forward to kiss his niece, and congratulateKenneth upon being restored to her. 

"I heard of it, lad, in London, " quoth he, a leer upon his sallowface--"the story of how a fire-eater named Galliard befriended you, trussed a parson and a trooper, and dragged you out of jail a short hourbefore hanging-time. "

Kenneth flushed. He felt the sneer in Joseph's, words like a stab. Theman's tone implied that another had done for him that which he wouldnot have dared do for himself, and Kenneth felt that this was so said inCynthia's presence with malicious, purpose. 

He was right. Partly it was Joseph's way to be spiteful and venomouswhenever chance afforded him the opportunity. Partly he had beenparticularly soured at present by his recent discomforts, suffered in acause wherewith he had no, sympathy--that of the union Gregory desired'twixt Cynthia and Kenneth. 

There was an evil smile on his thin lips, and his crooked eyes restedtormentingly upon the young man. A fresh taunt trembled on his viperishtongue, when Gregory plucked at the skirts of his coat, and drew himaside. They entered the chamber where they had held their last interviewbefore Joseph had set out for news of Kenneth. With an air of mysteryGregory closed the door, then turned to face his brother. He stayed himin the act of unbuckling his sword-belt. 

"Wait, Joseph!" he cried dramatically. "This is no time to disarm. Keepyour sword on your thigh, man; you will need it as you never yet haveneeded it. " He paused, took a deep breath, and hurled the news athis brother. "Roland Marleigh is here. " And he sat down like a manexhausted. 

Joseph did not start; he did not cry out; he did not so much as changecountenance. A slight quiver of the eyelids was the only outward signhe gave of the shock that his brother's announcement had occasioned. Thehand that had rested on the buckle of his sword-belt slipped quietlyto his side, and he deliberately stepped up to Gregory, his eyes setsearchingly upon the pale, flabby face before him. A sudden suspiciondarting through his mind, he took his brother by the shoulders and shookhim vigorously. 

"Gregory, you fool, you have drunk overdeep in my absence. "

"I have, I have, " wailed Gregory, "and, my God, 'twas he was mytable-fellow, and set me the example. "

"Like enough, like enough, " returned Joseph, with a contemptuous laugh. "My poor Gregory, the wine has so fouled your worthless wits at last, that they conjure up phantoms to sit at the table with you. Come, man, what petticoat business is this? Bestir yourself, fool. "

At that Gregory caught the drift of Joseph's suspicions. 

"Tis you are the fool, " he retorted angrily, springing to his feet, andtowering above his brother. 

"It was no ghost sat with me, but Roland Marleigh, himself, in theflesh, and strangely changed by time. So changed that I knew him not, nor should I know him now but for that which, not ten minutes ago, Ioverheard. "

His earnestness was too impressive, his sanity too obvious, and Joseph'ssuspicions were all scattered before it. 

He caught Gregory's wrist in a grip that made him wince, and forced himback into his seat. 

"Gadslife, man, what is it you mean?" he demanded through set teeth. "Tell me. "

And forthwith Gregory told him of the manner of Kenneth's coming toSheringham and to Castle Marleigh, accompanied by one Crispin Galliard, the same that had been known for his mad exploits in the late wars as"rakehelly Galliard, " and that was now known to the malignants as "TheTavern Knight" for his debauched habits. Crispin's mention of RolandMarleigh on the night of his arrival now returned vividly to Gregory'smind, and he repeated it, ending with the story that that very eveninghe had overheard Kenneth telling Cynthia. 

"And this Galliard, then, is none other than that pup of insolence, Roland Marleigh, grown into a dog of war?" quoth Joseph. 

He was calm--singularly calm for one who had heard such news. 

"There remains no doubt of it. "

"And you saw this man day by day, sat with him night by night over yourdamned sack, and knew him not? Oddswounds, man, where were your eyes?"

"I may have been blind. But he is greatly changed. I would defy you, Joseph, to have recognized him. "

Joseph sneered, and the flash of his eyes told of the contempt whereinhe held his brother's judgment and opinions. 

"Think not that, Gregory. I have cause enough to remember him, " saidJoseph, with an unpleasant laugh. Then as suddenly changing his tone forone of eager anxiety:

"But the lad, Gregory, does he suspect, think you?"

"Not a whit. In that lies this fellow's diabolical cunning. Learning ofKenneth's relations with us, he seized the opportunity Fate offered himthat night at Worcester, and bound the lad on oath to help him when heshould demand it, without disclosing the names of those against whom heshould require his services. The boy expects at any moment to be biddento go forth with him upon his mission of revenge, little dreaming thatit is here that that tragedy is to be played out. "

"This comes of your fine matrimonial projects for Cynthia, " mutteredJoseph acridly. He laughed his unpleasant laugh again, and for a spellthere was silence. 

"To think, Gregory, " he broke out at last, "that for a fortnight heshould have been beneath this roof, and you should have found no meansof doing more effectively that which was done too carelessly eighteenyears ago. "

He spoke as coldly as though the matter were a trivial one. Gregoryshuddered and looked at his brother in alarm. 

"What now, fool?" cried Joseph, scowling. "Are you as cowardly as youare blind? Damn me, sir, it seems well that I am returned. I'll have noMarleigh plague my old age for me. " He paused a moment, then continuedin a quieter voice, but one whose ring was sinister beyond words:"Tomorrow I shall find a way to draw this your dog of war to somesecluded ground. I have some skill, " he pursued, tapping his hilt as hespoke, "besides, you shall be there, Gregory. " And he smiled darkly. "Isthere no other way?" asked Gregory, in distress. 

"There was, " answered Joseph. "There was in Parliament. At Whitehall Imet a man--one Colonel Pride--a bloodthirsty old Puritan soldier, whowould give his right hand to see this Galliard hanged. Galliard, itseems, slew the fellow's son at Worcester. Had I but known, " he addedregretfully--"had your wits been keener, and you had discovered it andsent me word, I had found means to help Colonel Pride to his revenge. Asit is"--he shrugged his shoulders--"there is not time. "

"It may be--" began Gregory, then stopped abruptly with an exclamationthat caused Joseph to wheel sharply round. The door had opened, and onthe threshold Sir Crispin Galliard stood, deferentially, hat in hand. 

Joseph's astonished glance played rapidly over him for a second. Then:

"Who the devil may you be?" he blurted out. 

Despite his anxiety, Gregory chuckled at the question. The Tavern Knightcame forward. "I am Sir Crispin Galliard, at your service, " said he, bowing. "I was told that the master of Marleigh was returned, and thatI should find you here, and I hasten, sir, to proffer you my thanks forthe generous shelter this house has given me this fortnight past. "

Whilst he spoke he measured Joseph with his eyes, and his glance was ashateful as his words were civil. Joseph was lost in amazement. Littletrace was there in this fellow of the Roland Marleigh he had known. Moreover, he had looked to find an older man, forgetting that Roland'sage could not exceed thirty-eight. Then, again, the fading light, whilstrevealing the straight, supple lines of his lank figure, softened thehaggardness of the face and made him appear yet younger than the lightof day would have shown him. 

In an instant Joseph had recovered from his surprise, and for all thathis mind misgave him tortured by a desire to learn whether Crispin wasaware of their knowledge concerning him--his smile was serene, and histones level and pleasant, as he made answer:

"Sir, you are very welcome. You have valiantly served one dear to us, and the entertainment of our poor house for as long as you may deign tohonour it is but the paltriest of returns. "

CHAPTER XVI. THE RECKONING

Sir Crispin had heard naught of what was being said as he entered theroom wherein the brothers plotted against him, and he little dreamt thathis identity was discovered. He had but hastened to perform that which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been a natural enough dutytowards the master of the house. He had been actuated also by animpatience again to behold this Joseph Ashburn--the man who had dealthim that murderous sword-thrust eighteen years ago. He watched himattentively, and gathering from his scrutiny that here was a dangerous, subtle man, different, indeed, to his dull-witted brother, he haddetermined to act at once. 

And so when he appeared in the hall at suppertime, he came armed andbooted, and equipped as for a journey. 

Joseph was standing alone by the huge fire-place, his face to theburning logs, and his foot resting upon one of the andirons. Gregory andhis daughter were talking together in the embrasure of a window. By theother window, across the hall, stood Kenneth, alone and disconsolate, gazing out at the drizzling rain that had begun to fall. 

As Galliard descended, Joseph turned his head, and his eyebrows shot upand wrinkled his forehead at beholding the knight's equipment. 

"How is this, Sir Crispin?" said he. "You are going a journey?"

"Too long already have I imposed myself upon the hospitality of CastleMarleigh, " Crispin answered politely as he came and stood before theblazing logs. "To-night, Mr. Ashburn, I go hence. "

A curious expression flitted across Joseph's face. The next moment, his brows still knit as he sought to fathom his sudden action, he wasmuttering the formal regrets that courtesy dictated. But Crispin hadremarked that singular expression on Joseph's face--fleeting though ithad been--and it flashed across his mind that Joseph knew him. And as hemoved away towards Cynthia and her father, he thanked Heaven that he hadtaken such measures as he had thought wise and prudent for the carryingout of his resolve. 

Following him with a glance, Joseph asked himself whether Crispin haddiscovered that he was recognized, and had determined to withdraw, leaving his vengeance for another and more propitious season. Inanswer--little knowing the measure of the man he dealt with--he toldhimself it must be so, and having arrived at that conclusion, he thereand then determined that Crispin should not depart free to return andplague them when he listed. Since Galliard shrank from forcing mattersto an issue, he himself would do it that very night, and thereby settlefor all time his business. And so ere he sat down to sup Joseph lookedto it that his sword lay at hand behind his chair at the table-head. 

The meal was a quiet one enough. Kenneth was sulking 'neath the freshill-usage--as he deemed it--that he had suffered at Cynthia's hands. Cynthia, in her turn, was grave and silent. That story of Sir Crispin'ssufferings gave her much to think of, as did also his departure, andmore than once did Galliard find her eyes fixed upon him with a lookhalf of pity, half of some other feeling that he was at a loss tointerpret. Gregory's big voice was little heard. The sinister glitterin his brother's eye made him apprehensive and ill at ease. For him thehour was indeed in travail and like to bring forth strange doings--butnot half so much as it was for Crispin and Joseph, each bent uponforcing matters to a head ere they quitted that board. And yet but forthese two the meal would have passed off in dismal silence. Josephwas at pains to keep suspicion from his guest, and with that intent hetalked gaily of this and that, told of slight matters that had befallenhim on his recent journey and of the doings that in London he hadwitnessed, investing each trifling incident with a garb of wit thatrendered it entertaining. 

And Galliard--actuated by the same motives grew reminiscent wheneverJoseph paused and let his nimble tongue--even nimblest at a table amusethose present, or seem to amuse them, by a score of drolleries. 

He drank deeply too, and this Joseph observed with satisfaction. Buthere again he misjudged his man. Kenneth, who ate but little, seemedalso to have developed an enormous thirst, and Crispin grew at lengthalarmed at that ever empty goblet so often filled. He would have needof Kenneth ere the hour was out, and he rightly feared that did mattersthus continue, the lad's aid was not to be reckoned with. Had Kennethsat beside him he might have whispered a word of restraint in his eat, but the lad was on the other side of the board. 

At one moment Crispin fancied that a look of intelligence passed fromJoseph to Gregory, and when presently Gregory set himself to ply bothhim and the boy with wine, his suspicions became certainties, and hegrew watchful and wary. 

Anon Cynthia rose. Upon the instant Galliard was also on his feet. Heescorted her to the foot of the staircase, and there:

"Permit me, Mistress Cynthia, " said he, "to take my leave of you. In anhour or so I shall be riding away from Castle Marleigh. "

Her eyes sought the ground, and had he been observant of her he mighthave noticed that she paled slightly. 

"Fare you well, sir, " said she in a low voice. "May happiness attendyou. "

"Madam, I thank you. Fare you well. "

He bowed low. She dropped him a slight curtsey, and ascended the stairs. Once as she reached the gallery above she turned. He had resumed hisseat at table, and was in the act of filling his glass. The servants hadwithdrawn, and for half an hour thereafter they sat on, sipping theirwine, and making conversation--while Crispin drained bumper afterbumper and grew every instant more boisterous, until at length hisboisterousness passed into incoherence. His eyelids drooped heavily, andhis chin kept ever and anon sinking forward on to his breast. 

Kenneth, flushed with wine, yet master of his wits, watched him withcontempt. This was the man Cynthia preferred to him! Contempt was therealso in Joseph Ashburn's eye, mingled with satisfaction. He had notlooked to find the task so easy. At length he deemed the season ripe. 

"My brother tells me that you were once acquainted with RolandMarleigh, " said he. 

"Aye, " he answered thickly. "I knew the dog--a merry, reckless soul, d--n me. 'Twas his recklessness killed him, poor devil--that and yourhand, Mr. Ashburn, so the story goes. "

"What story?"

"What story?" echoed Crispin. "The story that I heard. Do you say Ilie?" And, swaying in his chair, he sought to assume an air of defiance. 

Joseph laughed in a fashion that made Kenneth's blood run cold. 

"Why, no, I don't deny it. It was in fair fight he fell. Moreover, hebrought the duel upon himself. "

Crispin spoke no word in answer, but rose unsteadily to his feet, sounsteadily that his chair was overset and fell with a crash behind him. For a moment he surveyed it with a drunken leer, then went lurchingacross the hall towards the door that led to the servants' quarters. The three men sat on, watching his antics in contempt, curiosity, andamusement. They saw him gain the heavy oaken door and close it. Theyheard the bolts rasp as he shot them home, and the lock click; and theysaw him withdraw the key and slip it into his pocket. 

The cold smile still played round Joseph's lips as Crispin turned toface them again, and on Joseph's lips did that same smile freeze as hesaw him standing there, erect and firm, his drunkenness all vanished, and his eyes keen and fierce; as he heard the ring of his metallicvoice:

"You lie, Joseph Ashburn. It was no fair fight. It was no duel. It wasa foul, murderous stroke you dealt him in the back, thinking to butcherhim as you butchered his wife and his babe. But there is a God, MasterAshburn, " he went on in an ever-swelling voice, "and I lived. Like asalamander I came through the flames in which you sought to destroy alltrace of your vile deed. I lived, and I, Crispin Galliard, the debauchedTavern Knight that was once Roland Marleigh, am here to demand areckoning. "

The very incarnation was he then of an avenger, as he stood toweringbefore them, his grim face livid with the passion into which he hadlashed himself as he spoke, his blazing eyes watching them in thatcunning, half-closed way that was his when his mood was dangerous. And yet the only one that quailed was Kenneth, his ally, upon whomcomprehension burst with stunning swiftness. 

Joseph recovered quickly from the surprise of Crispin's suddenlyreassumed sobriety. He understood the trick that Galliard had playedupon them so that he might cut off their retreat in the only directionin which they might have sought assistance, and he cursed himself fornot having foreseen it. Still, anxiety he felt none; his sword was tohis hand, and Gregory was armed; at the very worst they were two calmand able men opposed to a half-intoxicated boy, and a man whom fury, hethought, must strip of half his power. Probably, indeed, the lad wouldside with them, despite his plighted word. Again, he had but to raisehis voice, and, though the door that Crispin had fastened was a stoutone, he never doubted but that his call would penetrate it and bringhis servants to his rescue. 

And so, a smile of cynical unconcern returned to his lips and his answerwas delivered in a cold, incisive voice. 

"The reckoning you have come to demand shall be paid you, sir. RakehellyGalliard is the hero of many a reckless deed, but my judgment is muchat fault if this prove not his crowning recklessness and his last one. Gadswounds, sir, are you mad to come hither single-handed to beard thelion in his den?"

"Rather the cur in his kennel, " sneered Crispin back. "Blood and wounds, Master Joseph, think you to affright me with words?"

Still Joseph smiled, deeming himself master of the situation. 

"Were help needed, the raising of my voice would bring it me. But it isnot. We are three to one. "

"You reckon wrongly. Mr. Stewart belongs to me to-night--bound by anoath that 'twould damn his soul to break, to help me when and where Imay call upon him; and I call upon him now. Kenneth, draw your sword. "

Kenneth groaned as he stood by, clasping and unclasping his hands. 

"God's curse on you, " he burst out. "You have tricked me, you havecheated me. "

"Bear your oath in mind, " was the cold answer. "If you deem yourselfwronged by me, hereafter you shall have what satisfaction you demand. But first fulfil me what you have sworn. Out with your blade, man. "

Still Kenneth hesitated, and but for Gregory's rash action at thatcritical juncture, it is possible that he would have elected tobreak his plighted word. But Gregory fearing that he might determineotherwise, resolved there and then to remove the chance of it. Whippingout his sword, he made a vicious pass at the lad's breast. Kennethavoided it by leaping backwards, but in an instant Gregory had sprungafter him, and seeing himself thus beset, Kenneth was forced to drawthat he might protect himself. 

They stood in the space between the table and that part of the hall thatabutted on to the terrace; opposite to them, by the door which hehad closed, stood Crispin. At the table-head Joseph still sat cool, self-contained, even amused. 

He realized the rashness of Gregory's attack upon one that might yethave been won over to their side; but he never doubted that a few passeswould dispose of the lad's opposition, and he sought not to interfere. Then he saw Crispin advancing towards him slowly, his rapier naked inhis hand, and he was forced to look to himself. He caught at the swordthat stood behind him, and leaping to his feet he sprang forward tomeet his grim antagonist. Galliard's eyes flashed out a look of joy, heraised his rapier, and their blades met. 

To the clash of their meeting came an echoing clash from beyond thetable. 

"Hold, sir!" Kenneth had cried, as Gregory bore down upon him. ButGregory's answer had been a lunge which the boy had been forced toparry. Taking that crossing of blades for a sign of opposition, Gregorythrust again more viciously. Kenneth parried narrowly, his bladepointing straight at his aggressor. He saw the opening, and bothinstinct and the desire to repel Gregory's onslaught drew him intoattempting a riposte, which drove Gregory back until his shoulderstouched the panels of the wall. Simultaneously the boy's foot struck theback of the chair which in rising Crispin had overset, and he stumbled. How it happened he scarcely knew, but as he hurtled forward his bladeslid along his opponent's, and entering Gregory's right shoulder pinnedhim to the wainscot. 

Joseph heard the tinkle of a falling blade, and assumed it to beKenneth's. For the rest he was just then too busy to dare withdraw fora second his eyes from Crispin's. Until that hour Joseph Ashburn hadaccounted himself something of a swordsman, and more than a matchfor most masters of the weapon. But in Crispin he found a fencer of aquality such as he had never yet encountered. Every feint, every bottein his catalogue had he paraded in quick succession, yet ever with thesame result--his point was foiled and put aside with ease. 

Desperately he fought now, darting that point of his hither and thitherin and out whenever the slightest opening offered; yet ever did itmeet the gentle averting pressure of Crispin's blade. He fought on andmarvelled as the seconds went by that Gregory came not to his aid. Thenthe sickening thought that perhaps Gregory was overcome occurred tohim. In such a case he must reckon upon himself alone. He cursedthe over-confidence that had led him into that ever-fatal error ofunderestimating his adversary. He might have known that one who hadacquired Sir Crispin's fame was no ordinary man, but one accustomed toface great odds and master them. He might call for help. 

He marvelled as the thought occurred to him that the clatter of theirblades had not drawn his servants from their quarters. Fencing still, heraised his voice:

"Ho, there! John, Stephen!"

"Spare your breath, " growled the knight. "I dare swear you'll have needof it. None will hear you, call as you will. I gave your four henchmena flagon of wine wherein to drink to my safe journey hence. They haveemptied it ere this, I make no doubt, and a single glass of it would setthe hardest toper asleep for the round of the clock. "

An oath was Joseph's only answer--a curse it was upon his own folly andassurance. A little while ago he had thought to have drawn so tighta net about this ruler, and here was he now taken in its very toils, well-nigh exhausted and in his enemy's power. 

It occurred to him then that Crispin stayed his hand. That he fencedonly on the defensive, and he wondered what might his motive be. Herealized that he was mastered, and that at any moment Galliard mightsend home his blade. He was bathed from head to foot in a sweat that wasat once of exertion and despair. A frenzy seized him. Might he not yetturn to advantage this hesitancy of Crispin's to strike the final blow?

He braced himself for a supreme effort, and turning his wrist from asimulated thrust in the first position, he doubled, and stretching out, lunged vigorously in quarte. As he lengthened his arm in the strokethere came a sudden twitch at his wrist; the weapon was twisted from hisgrasp, and he stood disarmed at Crispin's mercy. 

A gurgling cry broke despite him from his lips, and his eyes grew widein a sickly terror as they encountered the knight's sinister glance. Notthree paces behind him was the wall, and on it, within the hand's easyreach, hung many a trophied weapon that might have served him then. Butthe fascination of fear was upon him, benumbing his wits and paralysinghis limbs, with the thought that the next pulsation of his tumultuousheart would prove its last. The calm, unflinching courage that hadbeen Joseph's only virtue was shattered, and his iron will that hadunscrupulously held hitherto his very conscience in bondage was turnedto water now that he stood face to face with death. 

Eons of time it seemed to him were sped since the sword was wrenchedfrom his hand, and still the stroke he awaited came not; still Crispinstood, sinister and silent before him, watching him with magnetic, fascinating eyes--as the snake watches the bird--eyes from which Josephcould not withdraw his own, and yet before which it seemed to him thathe quaked and shrivelled. 

The candles were burning low in their sconces, and the corners of thatample, gloomy hall were filled with mysterious shadows that formed asetting well attuned to the grim picture made by those two figures--theone towering stern and vengeful, the other crouching palsied and livid. 

Beyond the table, and with the wounded Gregory--lying unconscious andbleeding--at his feet, stood Kenneth looking on in silence, in wonderand in some horror too. 

To him also, as he watched, the seconds seemed minutes from the timewhen Crispin had disarmed his opponent until with a laugh--short andsudden as a stab--he dropped his sword and caught his victim by thethroat. 

However fierce the passion that had actuated Crispin, it had been heldhitherto in strong subjection. But now at last it suddenly welled up andmastered him, causing him to cast all restraint to the winds, to abandonreason, and to give way to the lust of rage that rendered ungovernablehis mood. 

Like a burst of flame from embers that have been smouldering was theupleaping of his madness, transfiguring his face and transforming hiswhole being. A new, unconquerable strength possessed him; his pulsesthrobbed swiftly and madly with the quickened coursing of his blood, andhis soul was filled with the cruel elation that attends a lust about tobe indulged the elation of the beast about to rend its prey. 

He was pervaded by the desire to wreak slowly and with his hands thedestruction of his broken enemy. To have passed his sword through himwould have been too swiftly done; the man would have died, and Crispinwould have known nothing of his sufferings. But to take him thus bythe throat; slowly to choke the life's breath out of him; to feel hisdesperate, writhing struggles; to be conscious of every agonized twitchof his sinews, to watch the purpling face, the swelling veins, theprotruding eyes filled with the dumb horror of his agony; to hold himthus--each second becoming a distinct, appreciable division of time--andthus to take what payment he could for all the blighted years that laybehind him--this he felt would be something like revenge. 

Meanwhile the shock of surprise at the unlooked-for movement hadawakened again the man in Joseph. For a second even Hope knocked athis heart. He was sinewy and active, and perchance he might yet makeGalliard repent that he had discarded his rapier. The knight's reasonfor doing so he thought he had in Crispin's contemptuous words:

"Good steel were too great an honour for you, Mr. Ashburn. "

And as he spoke, his lean, nervous fingers tightened about Joseph'sthroat in a grip that crushed the breath from him, and with it thenew-born hope of proving master in his fresh combat. He had not reckonedwith this galley-weaned strength of Crispin's, a strength that was arevelation to Joseph as he felt himself almost lifted from the ground, and swung this way and that, like a babe in the hands of a grown man. Vain were his struggles. His strength ebbed fast; the blood, heldoverlong in his head, was already obscuring his vision, when at last thegrip relaxed, and his breathing was freed. As his sight cleared againhe found himself back in his chair at the table-head, and beside him SirCrispin, his left hand resting upon the board, his right grasping oncemore the sword, and his eyes bent mockingly and evilly upon his victim. 

Kenneth, looking on, could not repress a shudder. He had known Crispinfor a tempestuous man quickly moved to wrath, and he had oftentimes seenanger make terrible his face and glance. But never had he seen aughtin him to rival this present frenzy; it rendered satanical the balefulglance of his eyes and the awful smile of hate and mockery with which hegazed at last upon the helpless quarry that he had waited eighteenyears to bring to earth. "I would, " said Crispin, in a harsh, deliberatevoice, "that you had a score of lives, Master Joseph. As it is I havedone what I could. Two agonies have you undergone already, and I aminclined to mercy. The end is at hand. If you have prayers to say, saythem, Master Ashburn, though I doubt me it will be wasted breath--youare over-ripe for hell. "

"You mean to kill me, " he gasped, growing yet a shade more livid. 

"Does the suspicion of it but occur to you?" laughed Crispin, "and yettwice already have I given you a foretaste of death. Think you I butjested?"

Joseph's teeth clicked together in a snap of determination. That sneerof Crispin's acted upon him as a blow--but as a blow that arouses thedesire to retaliate rather than lays low. He braced himself for freshresistance; not of action, for that he realized was futile, but ofargument. 

"It is murder that you do, " he cried. 

"No; it is justice. It has been long on the way, but it has come atlast. "

"Bethink you, Mr. Marleigh--"

"Call me not by that name, " cried the other harshly, fearfully. "I havenot borne it these eighteen years, and thanks to what you have mademe, it is not meet that I should bear it now. " There was a pause. ThenJoseph spoke again with great calm and earnestness. 

"Bethink you, Sir Crispin, of what you are about to do. It can benefityou in naught. "

"Oddslife, think you it cannot? Think you it will benefit me naught tosee you earn at last your reward?"

"You may have dearly to pay for what at best must prove a fleetingsatisfaction. "

"Not a fleeting one, Joseph, " he laughed. "But one the memory of whichshall send me rejoicing through what years or days of life be left me. Asatisfaction that for eighteen years I have been waiting to experience;though the moment after it be mine find me stark and cold. "

"Sir Crispin, you are in enmity with the Parliament--an outlaw almost. Ihave some influence much influence. By exerting it--"

"Have done, sir!" cried Crispin angrily. "You talk in vain. What tome is life, or aught that life can give? If I have so long endured theburden of it, it has been so that I might draw from it this hour. Do youthink there is any bribe you could offer would turn me from my purpose?"

A groan from Gregory, who was regaining consciousness, drew hisattention aside. 

"Truss him up, Kenneth, " he commanded, pointing to the recumbentfigure. "How? Do you hesitate? Now, as God lives, I'll be obeyed; or youshall have an unpleasant reminder of the oath you swore me!"

With a look of loathing the lad dropped on his knees to do as he wasbidden. Then of a sudden:

"I have not the means, " he announced. 

"Fool, does he not wear a sword-belt and a sash? Come, attend to it!"

"Why do you force me to do this?" the lad still protested passionately. "You have tricked and cheated me, yet I have kept my oath and renderedyou the assistance you required. They are in your power now, can you notdo the rest yourself?"

"On my soul, Master Stewart, I am over-patient with you! Are we towrangle at every step before you'll take it? I will have your assistancethrough this matter as you swore to give it. Come, truss me that fellow, and have done with words. "

His fierceness overthrew the boy's outburst of resistance. Kenneth hadwit enough to see that his mood was not one to brook much opposition, and so, with an oath and a groan, he went to work to pinion Gregory. 

Then Joseph spoke again. "Weigh well this act of yours, Sir Crispin, "he cried. "You are still young; much of life lies yet before you. Do notwantonly destroy it by an act that cannot repair the past. "

"But it can avenge it, Joseph. As for my life, you destroyed it yearsago. The future has naught to offer me; the present has this. " And hedrew back his sword to strike. 

CHAPTER XVII. JOSEPH DRIVES A BARGAIN

A new terror leapt into Joseph's eyes at that movement of Crispin's, and for the third time that night did he taste the agony that is Death'sforerunner. Yet Galliard delayed the stroke. He held his sword poised, the point aimed at Joseph's breast, and holding, he watched him, markingeach phase of the terror reflected upon his livid countenance. He wasloth to strike, for to strike would mean to end this exquisite tortureof horror to which he was subjecting him. 

Broken Joseph had been before and passive; now of a sudden he grewviolent again, but in a different way. He flung himself upon his kneesbefore Sir Crispin, and passionately he pleaded for the sparing of hismiserable life. 

Crispin looked on with an eye both of scorn and of cold relish. It wasthus he wished to see him, broken and agonized, suffering thus somethingof all that which he himself had suffered through despair in the yearsthat were sped. With satisfaction then he watched his victim's agony;he watched it too with scorn and some loathing--for a craven was in hiseyes an ugly sight, and Joseph in that moment was truly become as vile acoward as ever man beheld. His parchment-like face was grey and mottled, his brow bedewed with sweat; his lips were blue and quivering, his eyesbloodshot and almost threatening tears. 

In the silence of one who waits stood Crispin, listening, calm andunmoved, as though he heard not, until Joseph's whining prayersculminated in an offer to make reparation. Then Crispin broke in atlength with an impatient gesture. 

"What reparation can you make, you murderer? Can you restore to me thewife and child you butchered eighteen years ago?"

"I can restore your child at least, " returned the other. "I can and willrestore him to you if you but stay your hand. That and much more will Ido to repair the past. "

Unconsciously Crispin lowered his sword-arm, and for a full minute hestood and stared at Joseph. His jaw was fallen and the grim firmness allgone from his face, and replaced by amazement, then unbelief followedby inquiry; then unbelief again. The pallor of his cheeks seemed tointensify. At last, however, he broke into a hard laugh. 

"What lie is this you offer me? Zounds, man, are you not afraid?"

"It is no lie, " Joseph cried, in accents so earnest that some of theunbelief passed again from Galliard's face. "It is the truth-God'struth. Your son lives. "

"Hell-hound, it is a lie! On that fell night, as I swooned underyour cowardly thrust, I heard you calling to your brother to slit thesqualling bastard's throat. Those were your very words, Master Joseph. "

"I own I bade him do it, but I was not obeyed. He swore we should givethe babe a chance of life. It should never know whose son it was, hesaid, and I agreed. We took the boy away. He has lived and thrived. "

The knight sank on to a chair as though bereft of strength. He sought tothink, but thinking coherently he could not. At last:

"How shall I know that you are not lying? What proof can you advance?"he demanded hoarsely. 

"I swear that what I have told you is true. I swear it by the crossof our Redeemer!" he protested, with a solemnity that was not withouteffect upon Crispin. Nevertheless, he sneered. 

"I ask for proofs, man, not oaths. What proofs can you afford me?"

"There are the man and the woman whom the lad was reared by. "

"And where shall I find them?"

Joseph opened his lips to answer, then closed them again. In hiseagerness he had almost parted with the information which he nowproposed to make the price of his life. He regained confidence atCrispin's tone and questions, gathering from both that the knight waswilling to believe if proof were set before him. He rose to his feet, and when next he spoke his voice had won back much of its habitual calmdeliberateness. 

"That, " said he, "I will tell you when you have promised to go hence, leaving Gregory and me unharmed. I will supply you with what money youmay need, and I will give you a letter to those people, so couchedthat what they tell you by virtue of it shall be a corroboration of mywords. "

His elbow resting upon the table, and his hand to his brow so that itshaded his eyes, sat Crispin long in thought, swayed by emotions anddoubts, the like of which he had never yet known in the whole of hischequered life. Was Joseph lying to him?

That was the question that repeatedly arose, and oddly enough, for allhis mistrust of the man, he was inclined to account true the ring of hiswords. Joseph watched him with much anxiety and some hope. 

At length Crispin withdrew his hands from eyes that were grown haggard, and rose. 

"Let us see the letter that you will write, " said he. "There you havepen, ink, and paper. Write. "

"You promise?" asked Joseph. 

"I will tell you when you have written. "

In a hand that shook somewhat, Joseph wrote a few lines, then handedCrispin the sheet, whereon he read:

The bearer of this is Sir Crispin Galliard, who is intimately interestedin the matter that lies betwixt us, and whom I pray you answer fully andaccurately the questions he may put you in that connexion. 

"I understand, " said Crispin slowly. "Yes, it will serve. Now thesuperscription. " And he returned the paper. 

Ashburn was himself again by now. He realized the advantage he hadgained, and he would not easily relinquish it. 

"I shall add the superscription, " said he calmly, "when you swear todepart without further molesting us. "

Crispin paused a moment, weighing the position well in his mind. IfJoseph lied to him now, he would find means to return, he told himself, and so he took the oath demanded. 

Joseph dipped his pen, and paused meditatively to watch a drop of ink, wherewith it was overladen, fall back into the horn. The briefest ofpauses was it, yet it was not the accident it appeared to be. HithertoJoseph had been as sincere as he had been earnest, intent alone uponsaving his life at all costs, and forgetting in his fear of the presentthe dangers that the future might hold for him were Crispin Galliardstill at large. But in that second of dipping his quill, assured thatthe peril of the moment was overcome, and that Crispin would go forth ashe said, the devil whispered in his ear a cunning and vile suggestion. As he watched the drop of ink roll from his pen-point, he rememberedthat in London there dwelt at the sign of the Anchor, in Thames Street, one Colonel Pride, whose son this Galliard had slain, and who, did heonce lay hands upon him, was not like to let him go again. In a secondwas the thought conceived and the determination taken, and as he foldedthe letter and set upon it the superscription, Joseph felt that he couldhave cried out in his exultation at the cunning manner in which he wasoutwitting his enemy. 

Crispin took the package, and read thereon:

This is to Mr. Henry Lane, at the sign of the Anchor, Thames Street, London. 

The name was a fictitious one--one that Joseph had set down upon thespur of the moment, his intention being to send a messenger that shouldoutstrip Sir Crispin, and warn Colonel Pride of his coming. 

"It is well, " was Crispin's only comment. He, too, was grown calm againand fully master of himself. He placed the letter carefully within thebreast of his doublet. 

"If you have lied to me, if this is but a shift to win your miserablelife, rest assured, Master Ashburn, that you have but put off the dayfor a very little while. "

It was on Joseph's lips to answer that none of us are immortal, buthe bethought him that the pleasantry might be ill-timed, and bowed insilence. 

Galliard took his hat and cloak from the chair on which he had placedthem upon descending that evening. Then he turned again to Joseph. 

"You spoke of money a moment ago, " he said, in the tones of onedemanding what is his own the tones of a gentleman speaking to hissteward. "I will take two hundred Caroluses. More I cannot carry incomfort. "

Joseph gasped at the amount. For a second it even entered his mind toresist the demand. Then he remembered that there was a brace of pistolsin his study; if he could get those he would settle matters there andthen without the aid of Colonel Pride. 

"I will fetch the money, " said he, betraying his purpose by hisalacrity. 

"By your leave, Master Ashburn, I will come with you. "

Joseph's eyes flashed him a quick look of baffled hate. 

"As you will, " said he, with an ill grace. 

As they passed out, Crispin turned to Kenneth. 

"Remember, sir, you are still in my service. See that you keep goodwatch. "

Kenneth bent his head without replying. But Master Gregory requiredlittle watching. He lay a helpless, half-swooning heap upon the floor, which he had smeared with the blood oozing from his wounded shoulder. Even were he untrussed, there was little to be feared from him. 

During the brief while they were alone together, Kenneth did not so muchas attempt to speak to him. He sat himself down upon the nearest chair, and with his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees he ponderedover the miserable predicament into which Sir Crispin had got him, andmore bitter than ever it had been was his enmity at that moment towardsthe knight. That Galliard should be upon the eve of finding his son, anda sequel to the story he had heard from him that night in Worcester, was to Kenneth a thing of no interest or moment. Galliard had ruined himwith these Ashburns. He could never now hope to win the hand of Cynthia, to achieve which he had been willing to turn both fool and knave--aye, had turned both. There was naught left him but to return him to thepaltry Scottish estate of his fathers, there to meet the sneers of thosewho no doubt had heard that he was gone South to marry a great Englishheiress. 

That at such a season he could think of this but serves to prove theshallow nature of his feelings. A love was his that had gain andvanity for its foundation--in fact, it was no love at all. For what heaccounted love for Cynthia was but the love of himself, which throughCynthia he sought to indulge. 

He cursed the ill-luck that had brought Crispin into his life. He cursedCrispin for the evil he had suffered from him, forgetting that but forCrispin he would have been carrion a month ago and more. 

Deep at his bitter musings was he when the door opened again to admitJoseph, followed by Galliard. The knight came across the hall andstooped to look at Gregory. 

"You may untruss him, Kenneth, when I am gone, " said he. "And in aquarter of an hour from now you are released from your oath to me. Fareyou well, " he added with unusual gentleness, and turning a glance thatwas almost regretful upon the lad. "We are not like to meet again, butshould we, I trust it may be in happier times. If I have harmed you inthis business, remember that my need was great. Fare you well. " And heheld out his hand. 

"Take yourself to hell, sir!" answered Kenneth, turning his back uponhim. The ghost of an evil smile played round Joseph Ashburn's lips as hewatched them. 

CHAPTER XVIII. COUNTER-PLOT

So soon as Sir Crispin had taken his departure, and whilst yet the beatof his horse's hoofs was to be distinguished above the driving storm ofrain and wind without, Joseph hastened across the hall to the servants'quarters. There he found his four grooms slumbering deeply, their faceswhite and clammy, and their limbs twisted into odd, helpless attitudes. Vainly did he rain down upon them kicks and curses; arouse them he couldnot from the stupor in whose thrall they lay. 

And so, seizing a lanthorn, he passed out to the stables, whence Crispinhad lately taken his best nag, and with his own hands he saddled ahorse. His lips were screwed into a curious smile--a smile that stilllingered upon them when presently he retraced his steps to the roomwhere his brother sat with Kenneth. 

In his absence the lad had dressed Gregory's wound; he had induced himto take a little wine, and had set him upon a chair, in which he now layback, white and exhausted. 

"The quarter of an hour is passed, sir, " said Joseph coldly, as heentered. 

Kenneth made no sign that he heard. He sat on like a man in a dream. Hiseyes that saw nothing were bent upon Gregory's pale, flabby face. 

"The quarter of an hour is passed, sir, " Joseph repeated in a loudervoice. 

Kenneth looked up, then rose and sighed, passing his hand wearily acrosshis forehead. 

"I understand, sir, " he replied in a low voice. "You mean that I mustgo?"

Joseph waited a moment before replying. Then:

"It is past midnight, " he said slowly, "and the weather is wild. You maylie here until morning, if you are so minded. But go you must then, "he added sternly. "I need scarce say, sir, that you must have no speechwith Mistress Cynthia, nor that never again must you set foot withinCastle Marleigh. "

"I understand, sir; I understand. But you deal hardly with me. "

Joseph raised his eyebrows in questioning surprise. 

"I was the victim of my oath, given when I knew not against whom my handwas to be lifted. Oh, sir, am I to suffer all my life for a fault thatwas not my own? You, Master Gregory, " he cried, turning passionately toCynthia's father, "you are perchance more merciful? You understand myposition--how I was forced into it. "

Gregory opened his heavy eyes. 

"A plague on you, Master Stewart, " he groaned. "I understand that youhave given me a wound that will take a month to heal. "

"It was an accident, sir. I swear it was an accident!"

"To swear this and that appears to be your chief diversion in life, "growled Gregory for answer. "You had best go; we are not likely tolisten to excuses. "

"Did you rather suggest a remedy, " Joseph put in quietly, "we might hearyou. "

Kenneth swung round and faced him, hope brightening his eyes. 

"What remedy is there? How can I undo what I have done? Show me but theway, and I'll follow it, no matter where it leads!"

Such protestations had Joseph looked to hear, and he was hard put toit to dissemble his satisfaction. For a while he was silent, makingpretence to ponder. At length:

"Kenneth, " he said, "you may in some measure repair the evil you havedone, and if you are ready to undergo some slight discomfort, I shall bewilling on my side to forget this night. "

"Tell me how, sir, and whatever the cost I will perform it!"

He gave no thought to the fact that Crispin's grievance against theAshburns was well-founded; that they had wrecked his life even as theyhad sought to destroy it; even as eighteen years ago they had destroyedhis wife's. His only thought was Cynthia; his only wish was to possessher. Besides that, justice and honour itself were of small account. 

"It is but a slight matter, " answered Joseph. "A matter that I mightentrust to one of my grooms. "

That whilst his grooms lay drugged the matter was so pressing that hismessenger must set out that very night, Joseph did not think of adding. 

"I would, sir, " answered the boy, "that the task were great anddifficult. "

"Yes, yes, " answered Joseph with biting sarcasm, "we are acquainted withboth your courage and your resource. " He sat silent and thoughtful forsome moments, then with a sudden sharp glance at the lad:

"You shall have this chance of setting yourself right with us, " he said. Then abruptly he added. 

"Go make ready for a journey. You must set out within the hour forLondon. Take what you may require and arm yourself; then return to mehere. "

Gregory, who, despite his sluggish wits, divined--partly, at least--whatwas afoot, made shift to speak. But his brother silenced him with aglance. 

"Go, " Joseph said to the boy. And, without comment, Kenneth rose andleft them. 

"What would you do?" asked Gregory when the door had closed. 

"Make doubly sure of that ruffian, " answered Joseph coldly. "ColonelPride might be absent when he arrives, and he might learn that noneof the name of Lane dwells at the Anchor in Thames Street. It would befatal to awaken his suspicions and bring him back to us. "

"But surely Richard or Stephen might carry your errand?"

"They might were they not so drugged that they cannot be aroused. Imight even go myself, but it is better so. " He laughed softly. "There iseven comedy in it. Kenneth shall outride our bloodthirsty knight to warnPride of his coming, and when he comes he will walk into the hands ofthe hangman. It will be a surprise for him. For the rest I shall keepmy promise concerning his son. He shall have news of him from Pride--butwhen too late to be of service. "

Gregory shuddered. 

"Fore God, Joseph, 'tis a foul thing you do, " he cried. "Sooner would Inever set eyes on the lad again. Let him go his ways as you intended. "

"I never did intend it. What trustier messenger could I find now thatI have lent him zest by fright? To win Cynthia, we may rely upon himsafely to do that in which another might fail. "

"Joseph, you will roast in hell for it. "

Joseph laughed him to scorn. 

"To bed with you, you canting hypocrite; your wound makes youlight-headed. "

It was a half-hour ere Kenneth returned, booted, cloaked, and ready forhis journey. He found Joseph alone, busily writing, and in obedience toa sign he sat him down to wait. 

A few minutes passed, then, with a final scratch and splutter Josephflung down his pen. With the sandbox tilted in the air, like a dicerabout to make his throw, he looked at the lad. 

"You will spare neither whip nor spur until you arrive in London, MasterKenneth. You must ride night and day; the matter is of the greatesturgency. "

Kenneth nodded that he understood, and Joseph sprinkled the sand overthe written page. 

"I know not when you should reach London so that you may be in time, but, " he continued, and as he spoke he creased the paper and pouredthe superfluous sand back into the box, "I should say that by midnightto-morrow your message should be delivered. Aye, " he continued, inanswer to the lad's gasp of surprise, "it is hard riding, I know, butif you would win Cynthia you must do it. Spare neither money norhorseflesh, and keep to the saddle until you are in Thames Street. "

He folded the letter, sealed it, and wrote the superscription: "This toColonel Pride, at the sign of the Anchor in Thames Street. "

He rose and handed the package to Kenneth, to whom the superscriptionmeant nothing, since he had not seen that borne by the letter whichCrispin had received. 

"You will deliver this intact, and with your own hands, to Colonel Pridein person--none other. Should he be absent from Thames Street upon yourarrival, seek him out instantly, wherever he may be, and give him this. Upon your faithful observance of these conditions remember that yourfuture depends. If you are in time, as indeed I trust and think you willbe, you may account yourself Cynthia's husband. Fail and--well, you neednot return here. "

"I shall not fail, sir, " cried Kenneth. "What man can do to accomplishthe journey within twenty-four hours, I will do. "

He would have stopped to thank Joseph for the signal favour of thischance of rehabilitation, but Joseph cut him short. 

"Take this purse, " he cried impatiently. "You will find a horse readysaddled in the stables. Ride it hard. It will bear you to Norton atleast. There get you a fresh one, and when that is done, another. Now beoff. "

CHAPTER XIX. THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY

When the Tavern Knight left the gates of Marleigh Park behind him onthat wild October night, he drove deep the rowels of his spurs, and sethis horse at a perilous gallop along the road to Norwich. The action wasof instinct rather than of thought. In the turbulent sea of his mind, one clear current there was, and one only--the knowledge that he wasbound for London for news of this son of his whom Joseph told him lived. He paused not even to speculate what manner of man his child was grown, nor yet what walk of life he had been reared to tread. He lived: he wassomewhere in the world; that for the time sufficed him. The Ashburnshad not, it seemed, destroyed quite everything that made his life worthenduring--the life that so often and so wantonly he had exposed. 

His son lived, and in London he should have news of him. To London thenmust he get himself with all dispatch, and he swore to take no restuntil he reached it. And with that firm resolve to urge him, he ploughedhis horse's flanks, and sped on through the night. The rain beat inhis face, yet he scarce remarked it, as again more by instinct than byreason--he buried his face to the eyes in the folds of his cloak. 

Later the rain ceased, and clearer grew the line of light betwixt thehedgerows, by which his horse had steered its desperate career. Fitfullya crescent moon peered out from among the wind-driven clouds. The poorruffler was fallen into meditation, and noted not that his nag did nomore than amble. He roused himself of a sudden when half-way downa gentle slope some five miles from Norwich, and out of temper atdiscovering the sluggishness of the pace, he again gave the horse ataste of the spurs. The action was fatal. The incline was become a bedof sodden clay, and he had not noticed with what misgivings his horsepursued the treacherous footing. The sting of the spur made the animalbound forward, and the next instant a raucous oath broke from Crispinas the nag floundered and dropped on its knees. Like a stone from acatapult Galliard flew over its head and rolled down the few remainingyards of the slope into a very lake of slimy water at the bottom. 

Down this same hill, some twenty minutes later, came Kenneth Stewartwith infinite precaution. He was in haste--a haste more desperatefar than even Crispin's. But his character held none of Galliard'srecklessness, nor were his wits fogged by such news as Crispin had heardthat night. He realized that to be swift he must be cautious in hisnight-riding. And so, carefully he came, with a firm hand on the reins, yet leaving it to his horse to find safe footing. 

He had reached the level ground in safety, and was about to put his nagto a smarter pace, when of a sudden from the darkness of the hedge hewas hailed by a harsh, metallic voice, the sound of which sent a tremorthrough him. 

"Sir, you are choicely met, whoever you may be. I have suffered amischance down that cursed hill, and my horse has gone lame. "

Kenneth kept his cloak over his mouth, trusting that the muffling wouldsufficiently disguise his accents as he made answer. 

"I am in haste, my master. What is your will?"

"Why, marry, so am I in haste. My will is your horse, sir. Oh, I'm norobber. I'll pay you for it, and handsomely. But have it I must. 'Twillbe no great discomfort for you to walk to Norwich. You may do it in anhour. "

"My horse, sir, is not for sale, " was Kenneth's brief answer. "Give yougood night. "

"Hold, man! Blood and hell, stop! If you'll not sell the worthless beastto serve a gentleman, I'll shoot it under you. Make your choice. "

Kenneth caught the gleam of a pistol-barrel pointed at him from thehedge, and he shivered. What was he to do? Every instant was precious tohim. As in a flash it came to him that perchance Sir Crispin also rodeto London, and that it was expected of him to arrive there first if hewere to be in time. Swiftly he weighed the odds in his mind, and tookthe determination to dash past Sir Crispin, risking his aim and trustingto the dark to befriend him. 

But even as he determined thus, what moon there was became unveiled, andthe light of it fell upon his face, which was turned towards Galliard. An exclamation of surprise escaped Sir Crispin. 

"'Slife, Master Stewart, I knew not your voice. Whither do you ride?"

"What is it to you? Have you not wrought enough of evil for me? Am Inever to be rid of you? Castle Marleigh, " he added, with well-feignedanger, "has closed its doors upon me. What does it signify to youwhither I ride? Suffer me leastways to pass unmolested, and to leaveyou. "

Kenneth's passionate reproaches cut Galliard keenly. He held himself atthat moment a very knave for having dragged this boy into his work ofvengeance, and thereby cast a blight upon his life. He sought for wordswherein to give expression to something of what he felt, then realizinghow futile and effete all words must prove, he waved his hand in thedirection of the road. 

"Go, Master Stewart, " he muttered. "Your way is clear. "

And Kenneth, waiting for no second invitation, rode on and left him. Herode with gratitude in his heart to the Providence that had caused himso easily to overcome an obstacle that at first he had held impassable. Stronger grew in his mind the conviction that to fulfil the missionJoseph required of him, he must reach London before Sir Crispin. Theknowledge that he was ahead of him, and that he must derive an amplestart from Galliard's mishap, warmed him like wine. 

His mind thus relieved from its weight of anxiety, he little reckedfatigue, and such excellent use did he make of his horse that he reachedNewmarket on it an hour before the morrow's moon. 

An hour he rested there, and broke his fast. Then on a fresh horse--apowerful and willing animal he set out once more. 

By half-past two he was at Newport. But so hard had he ridden that manand beast alike were in a lather of sweat, and whilst he himself feltsick and tired, the horse was utterly unfit to bear him farther. Forhalf an hour he rested there, and made a meal whose chief constituentwas brandy. Then on a third horse he started upon the last stage of hisjourney. 

The wind was damp and penetrating; the roads veritable morasses of mud, and overhead gloomy banks of dark, grey clouds moved sluggishly, thelight that was filtered through them giving the landscape a bleak anddreary aspect. In his jaded condition Kenneth soon became a prey to thedepression of it. His lightness of heart of some dozen hours ago wasnow all gone, and not even the knowledge that his mission was well-nighaccomplished sufficed to cheer him. To add to his discomfort a finerain set in towards four o'clock, and when a couple of hours later heclattered along the road cut through a wooded slope in the direction ofWaltham, he was become a very limp and lifeless individual. 

He noticed not the horsemen moving cautiously among the closely-settrees on either side of the road. It was growing prematurely dark, andobjects were none too distinct. And thus it befell that when from thereverie of dejection into which he had fallen he was suddenly aroused bythe thud of hoofs, he looked up to find two mounted men barring the roadsome ten yards in front of him. Their attitude was unmistakable, and itcrossed poor Kenneth's mind that he was beset by robbers. But a secondglance showed him their red cloaks and military steel caps, and he knewthem for soldiers of the Commonwealth. 

Hearing the beat of hoofs behind him, he looked over his shoulder to seefour other troopers closing rapidly down upon him. Clearly he was theobject of their attention. He had been a fool not to have perceived thisearlier, and his heart misgave him, for all that had he paused to thinkhe must have realized that he had naught to fear, and that in this somemistake must lie. 

"Halt!" thundered the deep voice of the sergeant, who, with a trooper, held the road in front. 

Kenneth drew up within a yard of them, conscious that the man's darkeyes were scanning him sharply from beneath his morion. 

"Who are you, sir?" the bass voice demanded. 

Alas for the vanity of poor human mites! Even Kenneth, who never yet hadachieved aught for the cause he served, grew of a sudden chill to thinkthat perchance this sergeant might recognize his name for one that hehad heard before associated with deeds performed on the King's behalf. 

For a second he hesitated; then:

"Blount, " he stammered, "Jasper Blount. "

He little thought how that fruit of his vanity was to prove his undoingthereafter. 

"Verily, " sneered the sergeant, "it almost seemed you had forgotten it. "And from that sneer Kenneth gathered with fresh dread that the fellowmistrusted him. 

"Whence are you, Master Blount?"

Again Kenneth hesitated. Then recalling Ashburn's high favour with theParliament, and seeing that it could but advance his cause to state thetrue sum of his journey:

"From Castle Marleigh, " he replied. 

"Verily, sir, you seem yet in some doubt. Whither do you go?"

"To London. "

"On what errand?" The sergeant's questions fell swift as sword-strokes. 

"With letters for Colonel Pride. "

The reply, delivered more boldly than Kenneth had spoken hitherto, wasnot without its effect. 

"From whom are these letters?"

"From Mr. Joseph Ashburn, of Castle Marleigh. "

"Produce them. "

With trembling fingers Kenneth complied. This the sergeant observed ashe took the package. 

"What ails you, man?" quoth he. 

"Naught, sir 'tis the cold. "

The sergeant scanned the package and its seal. In a measure it was apassport, and he was forced to the conclusion that this man was indeedthe messenger he represented himself. Certainly he had not the air northe bearing of him for whom they waited, nor did the sergeant think thattheir quarry would have armed himself with a dummy package against sucha strait. And yet the sergeant was not master after all, and did he letthis fellow pursue his journey, he might reap trouble for it hereafter;whilst likewise if he detained him, Colonel Pride, he knew, was not anover-patient man. He was still debating what course to take, and hadturned to his companion with the muttered question: "What think you, Peter?" when by his precipitancy Kenneth ruined his slender chance ofbeing permitted to depart. 

"I pray you, sir, now that you know my errand, suffer me to pass on. "

There was an eager tremor in his voice that the sergeant mistook forfear. He noted it, and remembering the boy's hesitancy in answering hisearlier questions, he decided upon his course of action. 

"We shall not delay your journey, sir, " he answered, eyeing Kennethsharply, "and as your way must lie through Waltham, I will but ask youto suffer us to ride with you thus far, so that there you may answer anyquestions our captain may have to ask ere you proceed. "

"But, sir--"

"No more, master courier, " snarled the sergeant. Then, beckoning atrooper to his side, he whispered an order in his ear. 

As the man withdrew they wheeled their horses, and at a sharp wordof command Kenneth rode on towards Waltham between the sergeant and atrooper. 

CHAPTER XX. THE CONVERTED HOGAN

Night black and impenetrable had set in ere Kenneth and his escortclattered over the greasy stones of Waltham's High Street, and drew upin front of the Crusader Inn. 

The door stood wide and hospitable, and a warm shaft of light fell fromit and set a glitter upon the wet street. Avoiding the common-room, thesergeant led Kenneth through the inn-yard, and into the hostelry by aside entrance. He urged the youth along a dimly-lighted passage. On adoor at the end of this he knocked, then, lifting the latch, he usheredKenneth into a roomy, oak-panelled chamber. 

At the far end a huge fire burnt cheerfully, and with his back to it, his feet planted wide apart upon the hearth, stood a powerfully builtman of medium height, whose youthful face and uprightness of carriageassorted ill with the grey of his hair, pronouncing that greynesspremature. He seemed all clad in leather, for where his jerkin stoppedhis boots began. A cuirass and feathered headpiece lay in a corner, whilst on the table Kenneth espied a broad-brimmed hat, a huge sword, and a brace of pistols. 

As the boy's eyes came back to the burly figure on the hearth, he waspuzzled by a familiar, intangible something in the fellow's face. 

He was racking his mind to recall where last he had seen it, when withslightly elevated eyebrows and a look of recognition in his somewhatprominent blue eyes. 

"Soul of my body, " exclaimed the man in surprise, "Master Stewart, as Ilive. "

"Stuart!" cried both sergeant and trooper in a gasp, starting forward toscan their prisoner's face. 

At that the burly captain broke into a laugh. 

"Not the young man Charles Stuart, " said he; "no, no. Your captive isnone so precious. It is only Master Kenneth Stewart, of Bailienochy. "

"Then it is not even our man, " grumbled the soldier. 

"But Stewart is not the name he gave, " cried the sergeant. "JasperBlount he told me he was called. It seems that after all we havecaptured a malignant, and that I was well advised to bring him to you. "

The captain made a gesture of disdain. In that moment Kenneth recognizedhim. He was Harry Hogan--the man whose life Galliard had saved inPenrith. 

"Bah, a worthless capture, Beddoes, " he said. 

"I know not that, " retorted the sergeant. "He carries papers which hestates are from Joseph Ashburn, of Castle Marleigh, to ColonelPride. Colonel Pride's name is on the package, but may not that be asubterfuge? Why else did he say he was called Blount?"

Hogan's brows were of a sudden knit. 

"Faith, Beddoes, you are right. Remove his sword and search him. "

Calmly Kenneth suffered them to carry out this order. Inwardly he boiledat the delay, and cursed himself for having so needlessly given thename of Blount. But for that, it was likely Hogan would have straightwaydismissed him. He cheered himself with the thought that after all theywould not long detain him. Their search made, and finding nothing uponhim but Ashburn's letter, surely they would release him. 

But their search was very thorough. They drew off his boots, andwell-nigh stripped him naked, submitting each article of his apparel toa careful examination. At length it was over, and Hogan held Ashburn'spackage, turning it over in his hands with a thoughtful expression. 

"Surely, sir, you will now allow me to proceed, " cried Kenneth. "Iassure you the matter is of the greatest urgency, and unless I am inLondon by midnight I shall be too late. "

"Too late for what?" asked Hogan. 

"I--I don't know. "

"Oh?" The Irishman laughed unpleasantly. Colonel Pride and he wereon anything but the best of terms. The colonel knew him for a godlesssoldier of fortune bound to the Parliament's cause by no interest beyondthat of gain; and, himself a zealot, Colonel Pride had with distastefulfrequency shown Hogan the quality of his feelings towards him. ThatHogan was not afraid of him, was because it was not in Hogan's nature tobe afraid of anyone. But he realized at least that he had cause to be, and at the present moment it occurred to him that it would be passingsweet to find a flaw in the old Puritan's armour. If the package wereharmless his having opened it was still a matter that the discharge ofhis duty would sanction. Thus he reasoned; and he resolved to break theseal and make himself master of the contents of that letter. 

Hogan's unpleasant laugh startled Kenneth. It suggested to him thatperhaps, after all, his delay was by no means at an end; that Hogansuspected him of something--he could not think of what. 

Then in a flash an idea came to him. 

"May I speak to you privately for a moment, Captain Hogan?" he inquiredin such a tone of importance--imperiousness, almost--that the Irishmanwas impressed by it. He scented disclosure. 

"Faith, you may if you have aught to tell me, " and he signed to Beddoesand his companion to withdraw. 

"Now, Master Hogan, " Kenneth began resolutely as soon as they werealone, "I ask you to let me go my way unmolested. Too long already hasthe stupidity of your followers detained me here unjustly. That I reachLondon by midnight is to me a matter of the gravest moment, and youshall let me. "

"Soul of my body, Mr. Stewart, what a spirit you have acquired sincelast we met. "

"In your place I should leave our last meeting unmentioned, masterturncoat. "

The Irishman's eyebrows shot up. 

"By the Mass, young cockerel, I mislike your tone--"

"You'll have cause to dislike it more if you detain me. " He wasdesperate now. "What would your saintly, crop-eared friends say if theyknew as much of your past history as I do?"

"Tis a matter for conjecture, " said Hogan, humouring him. 

"How think you would they welcome the story of the roystering rake anddebauchee who deserted the army of King Charles because they were aboutto hang him for murder?"

"Ah! how, indeed?" sighed Hogan. 

"What manner of reputation, think you, that for a captain of the godlyarmy of the Commonwealth?"

"A vile one, truly, " murmured Hogan with humility. 

"And now, Mr. Hogan, " he wound up loftily, "you had best return me thatpackage, and be rid of me before I sow mischief enough to bring you acrop of hemp. "

Hogan stared at the lad's flushed face with a look of whimsicalastonishment, and for a brief spell there was silence between them. Slowly then, with his eyes still fixed upon Kenneth's, the captainunsheathed a dagger. The boy drew back, with a sudden cry of alarm. Hogan vented a horse-laugh, and ran the blade under the seal ofAshburn's letter. 

"Be not afraid, my man of threats, " he said pleasantly. "I have nothought of hurting you--leastways, not yet. " He paused in the act ofbreaking the seal. "Lest you should treasure uncomfortable delusions, dear Master Stewart, let me remind you that I am an Irishman--not afool. Do you conceive my fame to be so narrow a thing that when I leftthe beggarly army of King Charles for that of the Commonwealth, I didnot realize how at any moment I might come face to face with someone whohad heard of my old exploits, and would denounce me? You do not find memasquerading under an assumed name. I am here, sir, as Harry Hogan, asometime dissolute follower of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Charles Stuart;an erstwhile besotted, blinded soldier in the army of the Amalekite, a whilom erring malignant, but converted by a crowning mercy intoa zealous, faithful servant of Israel. There were vouchsafings andupliftings, and the devil knows what else, when this stray lamb wasgathered to the fold. "

He uttered the words with a nasal intonation, and a whimsical look atKenneth. 

"Now, Mr. Stewart, tell them what you will, and they will tell you yetmore in return, to show you how signally the light of grace hath beenshed over me. "

He laughed again, and broke the seal. Kenneth, crestfallen and abashed, watched him, without attempting further interference. Of what avail?

"You had been better advised, young sir, had you been less hasty andanxious. It is a fatal fault of youth's, and one of which nothing buttime--if, indeed, you live--will cure you. Your anxiety touching thispackage determines me to open it. "

Kenneth sneered at the man's conclusions, and, shrugging his shoulders, turned slightly aside. 

"Perchance, master wiseacres, when you have read it, you will appreciatehow egotism may also lead men into fatal errors. Haply, too, you will beable to afford Colonel Pride some satisfactory reason for tampering withhis correspondence. "

But Hogan heard him not. He had unfolded the letter, and at the firstwords he beheld, a frown contracted his brows. As he read on the frowndeepened, and when he had done, an oath broke from his lips. "God'slife!" he cried, then again was silent, and so stood a moment with benthead. At last he raised his eyes, and let them rest long and searchinglyupon Kenneth, who now observed him in alarm. 

"What--what is it?" the lad asked, with hesitancy. 

But Hogan never answered. He strode past him to the door, and flung itwide. 

"Beddoes!" he called. A step sounded in the passage, and the sergeantappeared. "Have you a trooper there?"

"There is Peter, who rode with me. "

"Let him look to this fellow. Tell him to set him under lock and bolthere in the inn until I shall want him, and tell him that he shallanswer for him with his neck. "

Kenneth drew back in alarm. 

"Sir--Captain Hogan--will you explain?"

"Marry, you shall have explanations to spare before morning, else I'ma fool. But have no fear, for we intend you no hurt, " he added moresoftly. "Take him away, Beddoes; then return to me here. "

When Beddoes came back from consigning Kenneth into the hands of histrooper, he found Hogan seated in the leathern arm-chair, with Ashburn'sletter spread before him on the table. 

"I was right in my suspicions, eh?" ventured Beddoes complacently. 

"You were more than right, Beddoes, you were Heaven-inspired. It is noState matter that you have chanced upon, but one that touches a man inwhom I am interested very nearly. "

The sergeant's eyes were full of questions, but Hogan enlightened him nofurther. 

"You will ride back to your post at once, Beddoes, " he commanded. "Should Lord Oriel fall into your hands, as we hope, you will send himto me. But you will continue to patrol the road, and demand the businessof all comers. I wish one Crispin Galliard, who should pass this way erelong, detained, and brought to me. He is a tall, lank man--"

"I know him, sir, " Beddoes interrupted. "The Tavern Knight they calledhim in the malignant army--a rakehelly, dissolute brawler. I saw him inWorcester when he was taken after the fight. "

Hogan frowned. The righteous Beddoes knew overmuch. "That is the man, "he answered calmly. "Go now, and see that he does not ride past you. Ihave great and urgent need of him. "

Beddoes' eyes were opened in surprise. 

"He is possessed of valuable information, " Hogan explained. "Away withyou, man. "

When alone, Harry Hogan turned his arm-chair sideways towards the fire. Then, filling himself a pipe--for in his foreign campaigning he hadacquired the habit of tobacco-smoking--he stretched his sinewy legsacross a second chair, and composed himself for meditation. An hour wentby; the host looked in to see if the captain required anything. Anotherhour sped on, and the captain dozed. 

He awoke with a start. The fire had burned low, and the hands of thehuge clock in the corner pointed to midnight. From the passage came tohim the sound of steps and angry voices. 

Before Hogan could rise, the door was flung wide, and a tall, gaunt manwas hustled across the threshold by two soldiers. His head was bare, and his hair wet and dishevelled. His doublet was torn and his shoulderbleeding, whilst his empty scabbard hung like a lambent tail behind him. 

"We have brought him, captain, " one of the men announced. 

"Aye, you crop-eared, psalm-whining cuckolds, you've brought me, d--nyou, " growled Sir Crispin, whose eyes rolled fiercely. 

As his angry glance lighted upon Hogan's impressive face, he abruptlystemmed the flow of invective that rushed to his lips. 

The Irishman rose, and looked past him at the troopers. "Leave us, " hecommanded shortly. 

He remained standing by the hearth until the footsteps of his men haddied away, then he crossed the chamber, passed Crispin without a word, and quietly locked the door. That done, he turned a friendly smile onhis tanned face--and holding out his hand:

"At last, Cris, it is mine to thank you and to repay you in some measurefor the service you rendered me that night at Penrith. "

CHAPTER XXI. THE MESSAGE KENNETH BORE

In bewilderment Crispin took the outstretched hand of his oldfellow-roysterer. 

"Oddslife, " he growled, "if to have me waylaid, dragged from my horseand wounded by those sons of dogs, your myrmidons, be your manner ofexpressing gratitude, I'd as lief you had let me go unthanked. "

"And yet, Cris, I dare swear you'll thank me before another hour issped. Ough, man, how cold you are! There's a bottle of strong watersyonder--"

Then, without completing his sentence, Hogan had seized the black jackand poured half a glass of its contents, which he handed Crispin. 

"Drink, man, " he said briefly, and Crispin, nothing loath, obeyed him. 

Next Hogan drew the torn and sodden doublet from his guest's back, pushed a chair over to the table, and bade him sit. Again, nothingloath, Crispin did as he was bidden. He was stiff from long riding, andso with a sigh of satisfaction he settled himself down and stretched outhis long legs. 

Hogan slowly took the seat opposite to him, and coughed. He was at aloss how to open the parlous subject, how to communicate to Crispin theamazing news upon which he had stumbled. 

"Slife' Hogan, " laughed Crispin dreamily, "I little thought it was toyou those crop-ears carried me with such violence. I little thought, indeed, ever to see you again. But you have prospered, you knave, sincethat night you left Penrith. "

And he turned his head the better to survey the Irishman. 

"Aye, I have prospered, " Hogan assented. "My life is a sort of parableof the fatted son and the prodigal calf. They tell me there is greaterjoy in heaven over the repentance of a sinner than--than--Plague on it!How does it go?"

"Than over the downfall of a saint?" suggested Crispin. 

"I'll swear that's not the text, but any of my troopers could quote ityou; every man of them is an incarnate Church militant. " He paused, and Crispin laughed softly. Then abruptly: "And so you were riding toLondon?" said he. 

"How know you that?"

"Faith, I know more--much more. I can even tell you to what house yourode, and on what errand. You were for the sign of the Anchor in ThamesStreet, for news of your son, whom Joseph Ashburn hath told you lives. "

Crispin sat bolt upright, a look of mingled wonder and suspicion on hisface. 

"You are well informed, you gentlemen of the Parliament, " he said. 

"On the matter of your errand, " the Irishman returned quietly, "I ammuch better informed than are you. Shall I tell you who lives at thesign of the Anchor--not whom you have been told lives there, but whoreally does occupy the house?" Hogan paused a second as though awaitingsome reply; then softly he answered his own question: "Colonel Pride. "And he sat back to await results. 

There were none. For the moment the name awoke no recollections, conveyed no meaning to Crispin. 

"Who may Colonel Pride be?" he asked, after a pause. 

Hogan was visibly disappointed. 

"A certain powerful and vindictive member of the Rump, whose son youkilled at Worcester. "

This time the shaft went home. Galliard sprang out of the chair, hisbrows darkening, and his cheeks pale beyond their wont. 

"Zounds, Hogan, do you mean that Joseph Ashburn was betraying me intothis man's hands?"

"You have said it. "

"But--"

Crispin stopped short. The pallor of his face increased; it becameashen, and his eyes glittered as though a fever consumed him. He sankback into his chair, and setting both hands upon the table before him, he looked straight at Hogan. 

"But my son, Hogan, my son?" he pleaded, and his voice was broken as noman had heard it yet. "Oh, God in heaven!" he cried in a sudden frenzy. "What hell's work is this?"

Behind his blue lips his teeth were chattering now. His hands shook ashe held them, still clenched, before him. Then, in a dull, concentratedvoice:

"Hogan, " he vowed, "I'll kill him for it. Fool, blind, pitiful fool thatI am. "

Then--his face distorted by passion--he broke into a torrent ofimprecations that was at length stemmed by Hogan. 

"Wait, Cris, " said he, laying his hand upon the other's arm. "It is notall false. Joseph Ashburn sought, it is true, to betray you into thehands of Colonel Pride, sending you to the sign of the Anchor with theassurance that there you should have news of your son. That was false;yet not all false. Your son does live, and at the sign of the Anchor itis likely you would have had the news of him you sought. But that newswould have come when too late to have been of value to you. "

Crispin tried to speak, but failed. Then, mastering himself by aneffort, and in a voice that was oddly shaken:

"Hogan, " he cried, "you are torturing me! What is the sum of yourknowledge?"

At last the Irishman produced Ashburn's letter to Colonel Pride. 

"My men, " said he, "are patrolling the roads in wait for a malignantthat has incurred the Parliament's displeasure. We have news that he ismaking for Harwich, where a vessel lies waiting to carry him to France, and we expect that he will ride this way. Three hours ago a young manunable clearly to account for himself rode into our net, and was broughtto me. He was the bearer of a letter to Colonel Pride from JosephAshburn. He had given my sergeant a wrong name, and betrayed suchanxiety to be gone that I deemed his errand a suspicious one, and brokethe seal of that letter. You may thank God, Galliard, every night ofyour life that I did so. "

"Was this youth Kenneth Stewart?" asked Crispin. 

"You have guessed it. "

"D--n the lad, " he began furiously. Then repressing himself, he sighed, and in an altered tone, "No, no, " said he. "I have grievously wrongedhim! have wrecked his life--or at least he thinks so now. I can hardlyblame him for seeking to be quits with me. "

"The lad, " returned Hogan, "must be himself a dupe. He can have had nosuspicion of the message he carried. Let me read it to you; it will makeall clear. "

Hogan drew a taper nearer, and spreading the paper upon the table, hesmoothed it out, and read:

HONOURED SIR, The bearer of the present should, if he rides well, outstrip anothermessenger I have dispatched to you upon a fool's errand, with a letteraddressed to one Mr. Lane at the sign of the Anchor. The bearer of thatis none other than the notorious malignant, Sir Crispin Galliard, bywhose hand your son was slain under your very eyes at Worcester, whosecapture I know that you warmly desire and with whom I doubt not you willknow how to deal. To us he has been a source of no little molestation;his liberty, in fact, is a perpetual menace to our lives. For someeighteen years this Galliard has believed dead a son that my cousin borehim. News of this son, whom I have just informed him lives--as indeed hedoes--is the bait wherewith I have lured him to your address. Forewarnedby the present, I make no doubt you will prepare to receive himfittingly. But ere that justice he escaped at Worcester be meted outto him at Tyburn or on Tower Hill, I would have you give him that newstouching his son which I am sending him to you to receive. Inform him, sir, that his son, Jocelyn Marleigh... 

Hogan paused, and shot a furtive glance at Galliard. The knight wasleaning forward now, his eyes strained, his forehead beaded withperspiration, and his breathing heavy. 

"Read on, " he begged hoarsely. 

His son, Jocelyn Marleigh, is the bearer of this letter, the man whomhe has injured and who detests him, the youth with whom he has, by acurious chance, been in much close association, and whom he has known asKenneth Stewart. 

"God!" gasped Crispin. Then with sudden vigour, "Oh, 'tis a lie, " hecried, "a fresh invention of that lying brain to torture me. "

Hogan held up his hand. 

"There is a little more, " he said, and continued:

Should he doubt this, bid him look closely into the lad's face, and askhim, after he has scrutinized it, what image it evokes. Should he stilldoubt thereafter, thinking the likeness to which he has been singularlyblind to be no more than accidental, bid them strip the lad's rightfoot. It bears a mark that I think should convince him. For the rest, honoured sir, I beg you to keep all information touching his parentagefrom the boy himself, wherein I have weighty ends to serve. Within afew days of your receipt of this letter, I look to have the honour ofwaiting upon you. In the meanwhile, honoured sir, believe that while Iam, I am your obedient servant, JOSEPH ASHBURN

Across the narrow table the two men's glances met--Hogan's full ofconcern and pity, Crispin's charged with amazement and horror. A littlewhile they sat thus, then Crispin rose slowly to his feet, and withsteps uncertain as a drunkard's he crossed to the window. He pushed itopen, and let the icy wind upon his face and head, unconscious of itssting. Moments passed, during which the knight went over the last fewmonths of his turbulent life since his first meeting at Perth withKenneth Stewart. He recalled how strangely and unaccountably he had beendrawn to the boy when first he beheld him in the castle yard, and how, owing to a feeling for which he could not account, since the lad'scharacter had little that might commend him to such a man as Crispin, hehad contrived that Kenneth should serve in his company. 

He recalled how at first--aye, and often afterwards even--he had soughtto win the boy's affection, despite the fact that there was naughtin the boy that he truly admired, and much that he despised. Wasit possible that these his feelings were dictated by Nature to hisunconscious mind? It must indeed be so, and the written words of JosephAshburn to Colonel Pride were true. Kenneth was indeed his son; theconviction was upon him. He conjured up the lad's face, and a cry ofdiscovery escaped him. How blind he had been not to have seen before thelikeness of Alice--his poor, butchered girl-wife of eighteen years ago. How dull never before to have realized that that likeness it was haddrawn him to the boy. 

He was calm by now, and in his calm he sought to analyse his thoughts, and he was shocked to find that they were not joyous. He yearned--as hehad yearned that night in Worcester--for the lad's affection, and yet, for all his yearning, he realized that with the conviction that Kennethwas his offspring came a dull sense of disappointment. He was not sucha son as the rakehelly knight would have had him. Swiftly he put thethought from him. The craven hands that had reared the lad had warpedhis nature; he would guide it henceforth; he would straighten it outinto a nobler shape. 

Then he smiled bitterly to himself. What manner of man was he to traina youth to loftiness and honour?--he, a debauched ruler with a nicknamefor which, had he any sense of shame, he would have blushed! Again heremembered the lad's disposition towards himself; but these, he thought, he hoped, he knew that he would now be able to overcome. 

He closed the window, and turned to face his companion. He was himselfagain, and calm, for all that his face was haggard beyond its wont. 

"Hogan, where is the boy?"

"I have detained him in the inn. Will you see him now?"

"At once, Hogan. I am convinced. "

The Irishman crossed the chamber, and opening the door he called anorder to the trooper waiting in the passage. 

Some minutes they waited, standing, with no word uttered between them. At last steps sounded in the corridor, and a moment later Kenneth wasrudely thrust into the room. Hogan signed to the trooper, who closed thedoor and withdrew. 

As Kenneth entered, Crispin advanced a step and paused, his eyesdevouring the lad and receiving in exchange a glance that was full ofmalevolence. 

"I might have known, sir, that you were not far away, " he exclaimedbitterly, forgetting for the moment how he had left Crispin behind himon the previous night. "I might have guessed that my detention was yourwork. "

"Why so?" asked Crispin quietly, his eyes ever scanning the lad's facewith a pathetic look. 

"Because it is your way, I know not why, to work my ruin in all things. Not satisfied with involving me in that business at Castle Marleigh, youmust needs cross my path again when I am about to make amends, and soblight my last chance. My God, sir, am I never to be rid of you? Whatharm have I done you?"

A spasm of pain, like a ripple over water, crossed the knight's swartface. 

"If you but consider, Kenneth, " he said, speaking very quietly, "youmust see the injustice of your words. Since when has Crispin Galliardserved the Parliament, that Roundhead troopers should do his bidding asyou suggest? And touching that business at Sheringham you are over-hardwith me. It was a compact you made, and but for which, you forget thatyou had been carrion these three weeks. "

"Would to Heaven that I had been, " the boy burst out, "sooner than paysuch a price for keeping my life!"

"As for my presence here, " Crispin continued, leaving the outburstunheeded, "it has naught to do with your detention. "

"You lie!"

Hogan caught his breath with a sharp hiss, and a dead silence followed. That silence struck terror into Kenneth's heart. He encounteredCrispin's eye bent upon him with a look he could not fathom, and muchwould he now have given to recall the two words that had burst from himin the heat of his rage. He bethought him of the unscrupulous, deadlycharacter attributed to the man to whom he had addressed them, and inhis coward's fancy he saw already payment demanded. Already hepictured himself lying cold and stark in the streets of Waltham witha sword-wound through his middle. His face went grey and his lipstrembled. 

Then Galliard spoke at last, and the mildness of his tone filled Kennethwith a new dread. In his experience of Crispin's ways he had come tolook upon mildness as the man's most dangerous phase:

"You are mistaken, " Crispin said. "I spoke the truth; it is a habit ofmine--haply the only gentlemanly habit left me. I repeat, I have hadnaught to do with your detention. I arrived here half an hour ago, asthe captain will inform you, and I was conducted hither by force, havingbeen seized by his men, even as you were seized. No, " he added, with asigh, "it was not my hand that detained you; it was the hand of Fate. "Then suddenly changing his voice to a more vehement key, "Know you onwhat errand you rode to London?" he demanded. "To betray your fatherinto the hands of his enemies; to deliver him up to the hangman. "

Kenneth's eyes grew wide; his mouth fell open, and a frown of perplexitydrew his brows together. Dully, uncomprehendingly he met Sir Crispin'ssad gaze. 

"My father, " he gasped at last. "'Sdeath, sir, what is it you mean? Myfather has been dead these ten years. I scarce remember him. "

Crispin's lips moved, but no word did he utter. Then with a suddengesture of despair he turned to Hogan, who stood apart, a silentwitness. 

"My God, Hogan, " he cried. "How shall I tell him?"

In answer to the appeal, the Irishman turned to Kenneth. 

"You have been in error, sir, touching your parentage, " quoth hebluntly. "Alan Stewart, of Bailienochy, was not your father. "

Kenneth looked from one to the other of them. 

"Sirs, is this a jest?" he cried, reddening. Then, remarking at lengththe solemnity of their countenances, he stopped short. Crispin cameclose up to him, and placed a hand upon his shoulder. The boy shrankvisibly beneath the touch, and again an expression of pain crossed thepoor ruffler's face. 

"Do you recall, Kenneth, " he said slowly, almost sorrowfully, "the storythat I told you that night in Worcester, when we sat waiting for dawnand the hangman?"

The lad nodded vacantly. 

"Do you remember the details? Do you remember I told you how, when Iswooned beneath the stroke of Joseph Ashburn's sword, the last wordsI heard were those in which he bade his brother slit the throat of thebabe in the cradle? You were, yourself, present yesternight at CastleMarleigh when Joseph Ashburn told me Gregory had been mercifullyinclined; that my child had not died; that if I gave him his life hewould restore him to me. You remember?"

Again Kenneth nodded. A vague, numbing fear was creeping round hisheart, and his blood seemed chilled by it and stagnant. With fascinatedeyes he watched the knight's face--drawn and haggard. 

"It was a trap that Joseph Ashburn set for me. Yet he did not altogetherlie. The child Gregory had indeed spared, and it seems from what I havelearned within the last half-hour that he had entrusted his rearing toAlan Stewart, of Bailienochy, seeking afterwards--I take it--to wed himto his daughter, so that should the King come to his own again, theyshould have the protection of a Marleigh who had served his King. "

"You mean, " the lad almost whispered, and his accents were unmistakablyof horror, "you mean that I am your--Oh, God, I'll not believe it!" hecried out, with such sudden loathing and passion that Crispin recoiledas though he had been struck. A dull flush crept into his cheeks to fadeupon the instant and give place to a pallor, if possible, intenser thanbefore. 

"I'll not believe it! I'll not believe it!" the boy repeated, as ifseeking by that reiteration to shut out a conviction by which he wasbeset. "I'll not believe it!" he cried again; and now his voice had lostits passionate vehemence, and was sunk almost to a moan. 

"I found it hard to believe myself, " was Crispin's answer, and hisvoice was not free from bitterness. "But I have a proof here that seemsincontestable, even had I not the proof of your face to which I havebeen blind these months. Blind with the eyes of my body, at least. Theeyes of my soul saw and recognized you when first they fell on you inPerth. The voice of the blood ordered me then to your side, and thoughI heard its call, I understood not what it meant. Read this letter, boy--the letter that you were to have carried to Colonel Pride. "

With his eyes still fixed in a gaze of stupefaction upon Galliard'sface, Kenneth took the paper. Then slowly, involuntarily almost itseemed, he dropped his glance to it, and read. He was long in reading, as though the writing presented difficulties, and his two companionswatched him the while, and waited. At last he turned the paper over, and examined seal and superscription as if suspicious that he held aforgery. 

But in some subtle, mysterious way--that voice of the blood perchanceto which Crispin had alluded--he felt conviction stealing down upon hissoul. Mechanically he moved across to the table, and sat down. Without aword, and still holding the crumpled letter in his clenched hand, he sethis elbows on the table, and, pressing his temples to his palms, he satthere dumb. Within him a very volcano raged, and its fires were fed withloathing--loathing for this man whom he had ever hated, yet never as hehated him now, knowing him to be his father. It seemed as if to allthe wrongs which Crispin had done him during the months of theiracquaintanceship he had now added a fresh and culminating wrong bydiscovering this parentage. 

He sat and thought, and his soul grew sick. He probed for some flaw, sought for some mistake that might have been made. And yet the morehe thought, the more he dwelt upon his youth in Scotland, the moreconvinced was he that Crispin had told him the truth. Pre-eminentargument of conviction to him was the desire of the Ashburns that heshould marry Cynthia. Oft he had marvelled that they, wealthy, and evenpowerful, selfish and ambitious, should have selected him, the scion ofan obscure and impoverished Scottish house, as a bridegroom for theirdaughter. The news now before him made their motives clear; indeed, noother motive could exist, no other explanation could there be. He wasthe heir of Castle Marleigh, and the usurpers sought to provide againstthe day when another revolution might oust them and restore the rightfulowners. 

Some elation his shallow nature felt at realizing this, but thatelation was short-lived, and dashed by the thought that this ruler, thisdebauchee, this drunken, swearing, roaring tavern knight was his father;dashed by the knowledge that meanwhile the Parliament was master, and that whilst matters stood so, the Ashburns could defy--could evendestroy him, did they learn how much he knew; dashed by the memory thatCynthia, whom in his selfish way--out of his love for himself--he loved, vas lost to him for all time. 

And here, swinging in a circle, his thoughts reverted to the cause ofthis--Crispin Galliard, the man who had betrayed him into yesternight'sfoul business and destroyed his every chance of happiness; the man whomhe hated, and whom, had he possessed the courage as he was possessedby the desire, he had risen up and slain; the man that now announcedhimself his father. 

And thinking thus, he sat on in silent, resentful vexation. He startedto feel a hand upon his shoulder, and to hear the voice of Galliardevidently addressing him, yet using a name that was new to him. 

"Jocelyn, my boy, " the voice trembled. "You have thought, and you haverealized--is it not so? I too thought, and thought brought me convictionthat what that paper tells is true. "

Vaguely then the boy remembered that Jocelyn was the name the lettergave him. He rose abruptly, and brushed the caressing hand from hisshoulder. His voice was hard--possibly the knowledge that he hadgained told him that he had nothing to fear from this man, and in thatassurance his craven soul grew brave and bold and arrogant. 

"I have realized naught beyond the fact that I owe you nothing butunhappiness and ruin. By a trick, by a low fraud, you enlisted me intoa service that has proved my undoing. Once a cheat always a cheat. Whatcredit in the face of that can I give this paper?" he cried, talkingwildly. "To me it is incredible, nor do I wish to credit it, for thoughit were true, what then? What then?" he repeated, raising his voice intoaccents of defiance. 

Grief and amazement were blended in Galliard's glance, and also, maybe, some reproach. 

Hogan, standing squarely upon the hearth, was beset by the desire tokick Master Kenneth, or Master Jocelyn, into the street. His lip curledinto a sneer of ineffable contempt, for his shrewd eyes read to thebottom of the lad's mean soul and saw there clearly writ the confidencethat emboldened him to voice that insult to the man he must know for hisfather. Standing there, he compared the two, marvelling deeply how theycame to be father and son. A likeness he saw now between them, yeta likeness that seemed but to mark the difference. The one harsh, resolute, and manly, for all his reckless living and his misfortunes;the other mild, effeminate, hypocritical and shifty. He read it not ontheir countenances alone, but in every line of their figures as theystood, and in his heart he cursed himself for having been the instrumentto disclose the relationship in which they stood. 

The youth's insolent question was followed by a spell of silence. Crispin could not believe that he had heard aright. At last he stretchedout his hands in a gesture of supplication--he who throughout histhirty-eight years of life, and despite the misfortunes that had beenhis, had never yet stooped to plead from any man. 

"Jocelyn, " he cried, and the pain in his voice must have melted a heartof steel, "you are hard. Have you forgotten the story of my miserablelife, the story that I told you in Worcester? Can you not understand howsuffering may destroy all that is lofty in a man; how the forgetfulnessof the winecup may come to be his only consolation; the hope ofvengeance his only motive for living on, withholding him fromself-destruction? Can you not picture such a life, and can you not pityand forgive much of the wreck that it may make of a man once virtuousand honourable?"

Pleadingly he looked into the lad's face. It remained cold and unmoved. 

"I understand, " he continued brokenly, "that I am not such a man as anylad might welcome for a father. But you who know what my life has been, Jocelyn, you can surely find it in your heart to pity. I had naughtthat was good or wholesome to live for, Jocelyn; naught to curb the evilmoods that sent me along evil ways to seek forgetfulness and reparation. 

"But from to-night, Jocelyn, my life in you must find a new interest, anew motive. I will abandon my old ways. For your sake, Jocelyn, I willseek again to become what I was, and you shall have no cause to blushfor your father. "

Still the lad stood silent. 

"Jocelyn! My God, do I talk in vain?" cried the wretched man. "Have youno heart, no pity, boy?"

At last the youth spoke. He was not moved. The agony of this strong man, the broken pleading of one whom he had ever known arrogant and stronghad no power to touch his mean, selfish mind, consumed as it was by thecontemplation of his undoing--magnified a hundredfold--which this manhad wrought. 

"You have ruined my life, " was all he said. 

"I will rebuild it, Jocelyn, " cried Galliard eagerly. "I have friends inFrance--friends high in power who lack neither the means nor the will toaid me. You are a soldier, Jocelyn. "

"As much a soldier as I'm a saint, " sneered Hogan to himself. 

"Together we will find service in the armies of Louis, " Crispin pursued. "I promise it. Service wherein you shall gain honour and renown. Therewe will abide until this England shakes herself out of her rebelliousnightmare. Then, when the King shall come to his own, Castle Marleighwill be ours again. Trust in me, Jocelyn. " Again his arms went outappealingly: "Jocelyn my son!"

But the boy made no move to take the outstretched hands, gave no sign ofrelenting. His mind nurtured its resentment--cherished it indeed. 

"And Cynthia?" he asked coldly. 

Crispin's hands fell to his sides; they grew clenched, and his eyeslighted of a sudden. 

"Forgive me, Jocelyn. I had forgotten! I understand you now. Yes, Idealt sorely with you there, and you are right to be resentful. What, after all, am I to you what can I be to you compared with her whoseimage fills your soul? What is aught in the world to a man, comparedwith the woman on whom his heart is set? Do I not know it? Have I notsuffered for it?

"But mark me, Jocelyn"--and he straightened himself suddenly--"even inthis, that which I have done I will undo. As I have robbed you of yourmistress, so will I win her back for you. I swear it. And when that isdone, when thus every harm I have caused you is repaired, then, Jocelyn, perhaps you will come to look with less repugnance upon your father, andto feel less resentment towards him. "

"You promise much, sir, " quoth the boy, with an illrepressed sneer. "Howwill you accomplish it?"

Hogan grunted audibly. Crispin drew himself up, erect, lithe andsupple--a figure to inspire confidence in the most despairing. He placeda hand, nervous, and strong as steel, upon the boy's shoulder, and theclutch of his fingers made Jocelyn wince. 

"Low though your father be fallen, " said he sternly, "he has never yetbroken his word. I have pledged you mine, and to-morrow I shall set outto perform what I have promised. I shall see you ere I start. You willsleep here, will you not?"

Jocelyn shrugged his shoulders. 

"It signifies little where I lie. "

Crispin smiled sadly, and sighed. 

"You have no faith in me yet. But I shall earn it, or"--and his voicefell suddenly--"or rid you of a loathsome parent. Hogan, can you findhim quarters?"

Hogan replied that there was the room he had already been confined in, and that he could lie in it. And deeming that there was nothing to begained by waiting, he thereupon led the youth from the room and downthe passage. At the foot of the stairs the Irishman paused in the act ofdescending, and raised the taper aloft so that its light might fall fullupon the face of his companion. 

"Were I your father, " said he grimly, "I would kick you from one end ofWaltham to the other by way of teaching you filial piety! And were younot his son, I would this night read you a lesson you'd never live topractise. I would set you to sleep a last long sleep in the kennelsof Waltham streets. But since you are--marvellous though it seem--hisoffspring, and since I love him and may not therefore hurt you, Imust rest content with telling you that you are the vilest thing thatbreathes. You despise him for a roysterer, for a man of loose ways. Letme, who have seen something of men, and who read you to-night to thevery dregs of your contemptible soul, tell you that compared with you heis a very god. Come, you white-livered cur!" he ended abruptly. "I willlight you to your chamber. "

When presently Hogan returned to Crispin he found the TavernKnight--that man of iron in whom none had ever seen a trace of fearor weakness seated with his arms before him on the table, and his faceburied in them, sobbing like a poor, weak woman. 

CHAPTER XXII. SIR CRISPIN'S UNDERTAKING

Through the long October night Crispin and Hogan sat on, and neithersought his bed. Crispin's quick wits his burst of grief once over--hadbeen swift to fasten on a plan to accomplish that which he hadundertaken. 

One difficulty confronted him, and until he had mentioned it to Hoganseemed unsurmountable he had need of a ship. But in this the Irishmancould assist him. He knew of a vessel then at Greenwich, whose masterwas in his debt, which should suit the purpose. Money, however, wouldbe needed. But when Crispin announced that he was master of some twohundred Caroluses, Hogan, with a wave of the hand, declared the mattersettled. Less than half that sum would hire the man he knew of. Thatdetermined, Crispin unfolded his project to Hogan, who laughed at thesimplicity of it, for all that inwardly he cursed the risk Sir Crispinmust run for the sake of one so unworthy. 

"If the maid loves him, the thing is as good as done. "

"The maid does not love him; leastways, I fear not. "

Hogan was not surprised. 

"Why, then it will be difficult, well-nigh impossible. " And the Irishmanbecame grave. 

But Crispin laughed unpleasantly. Years and misfortune had made himcynical. 

"What is the love of a maid?" quoth he derisively. "A caprice, a fancy, a thing that may be guided, overcome or compelled as the occasion shalldemand. Opportunity is love's parent, Hogan, and given that, any maidmay love any man. Cynthia shall love my son. "

"But if she prove rebellious? If she say nay to your proposals? Thereare such women. "

"How then? Am I not the stronger? In such a case it shall be mine tocompel her, and as I find her, so shall I carry her away. It will benone so poor a vengeance on the Ashburns after all. " His brow grewclouded. "But not what I had dreamed of; what I should have taken hadhe not cheated me. To forgo it now--after all these years of waiting--isanother sacrifice I make to Jocelyn. To serve him in this matter I mustproceed cautiously. Cynthia may fret and fume and stamp, but willy-nillyI shall carry her away. Once she is in France, friendless, alone, I makeno doubt that she will see the convenience of loving Jocelyn--leastwaysof wedding him and thus shall I have more than repaired the injuries Ihave done him. "

The Irishman's broad face was very grave; his reckless merry eye fixedGalliard with a look of sorrow, and this grey-haired, sinning soldier offortune, who had never known a conscience, muttered softly:

"It is not a nice thing you contemplate, Cris. "

Despite himself, Galliard winced, and his glance fell before Hogan's. For a moment he saw the business in its true light, and he wavered inhis purpose. Then, with a short bark of laughter:

"Gadso, you are sentimental, Harry!" said he, to add, more gravely:"There is my son, and in this lies the only way to his heart. ". 

Hogan stretched a hand across the table, and set it upon Crispin's arm. 

"Is he worth such a stain upon your honour, Crispin?"

There was a pause. 

"Is it not late in the day, Hogan, for you and me to prate of honour?"asked Crispin bitterly, yet with averted gaze. "God knows my honour isas like honour as a beggar's rags are like unto a cloak of ermine. Whatsignifies another splash, another rent in that which is tattered beyondall semblance of its original condition?"

"I asked you, " the Irishman persisted, "whether your son was worth thesacrifice that the vile deed you contemplate entails?"

Crispin shook his arm from the other's grip, and rose abruptly. Hecrossed to the window, and drew back the curtain. 

"Day is breaking, " said he gruffly. Then turning, and facing Hoganacross the room, "I have pledged my word to Jocelyn, " he said. "Theway I have chosen is the only one, and I shall follow it. But if yourconscience cries out against it, Hogan, I give you back your promise ofassistance, and I shall shift alone. I have done so all my life. "

Hogan shrugged his massive shoulders, and reached out for the bottle ofstrong waters. 

"If you are resolved, there is an end to it. My conscience shall nottrouble me, and upon what aid I have promised and what more I can give, you may depend. I drink to the success of your undertaking. "

Thereafter they discussed the matter of the vessel that Crispin wouldrequire, and it was arranged between them that Hogan should send amessage to the skipper, bidding him come to Harwich, and there await andplace himself at the command of Sir Crispin Galliard. For fifty poundsHogan thought that he would undertake to land Sir Crispin in France. Themessenger might be dispatched forthwith, and the Lady Jane should be atHarwich, two days later. 

By the time they had determined upon this, the inmates of the hostelrywere astir, and from the innyard came to them the noise of bustle andpreparation for the day. 

Presently they left the chamber where they had sat so long, and at theyard pump the Tavern Knight performed a rude morning toilet. Thereafter, on a simple fare of herrings and brown ale, they broke their fast; andere that meal was done, Kenneth, pale and worn, with dark circles roundhis eyes, entered the common room, and sat moodily apart. But when laterHogan went to see to the dispatching of his messenger, Crispin rose andapproached the youth. 

Kenneth watched him furtively, without pausing in his meal. He had spenta very miserable night pondering over the future, which lookedgloomy enough, and debating whether--forgetting and ignoring what hadpassed--he should return to the genteel poverty of his Scottish home, oraccept the proffered service of this man who announced himself--and whomhe now believed--to be his father. He had thought, but he was far fromhaving chosen between Scotland and France, when Crispin now greeted him, not without constraint. 

"Jocelyn, " he said, speaking slowly, almost humbly. "In an hour's time Ishall set out to return to Marleigh to fulfil my last night's promise toyou. How I shall accomplish it I scarce know as yet; but accomplish itI shall. I have arranged to have a vessel awaiting me, and within threedays--or four at the most--I look to cross to France, bearing your bridewith me. "

He paused for some reply, but none came. The boy sat on with animpassive face, his eyes glued to the table, but his mind busy enoughupon that which his father was pouring into his ear. Presently Crispincontinued:

"You cannot refuse to do as I suggest, Jocelyn. I shall make you thefullest amends for the harm that I have done you, if you but obey mydirections. You must quit this place as soon as possible, and proceed onyour way to London. There you must find a boat to carry you to France, and you will await me at the Auberge du Soleil at Calais. You areagreed, Jocelyn?"

There was a slight pause, and Jocelyn took his resolution. Yet there wasstill a sullen look in the eyes he lifted to his father's face. 

"I have little choice, sir, " he made answer, "and so I must agree. Ifyou accomplish what you promise, I own that you will have made amends, and I shall crave your pardon for my yesternight's want of faith. Ishall await you at Calais. "

Crispin sighed, and for a second his face hardened. It was not theanswer to which he held himself entitled, and for a moment it rose tothe lips of this man of fierce and sudden moods to draw back and letthe son, whom at the moment he began to detest, go his own way, whichassuredly would lead him to perdition. But a second's thought sufficedto quell that mood of his. 

"I shall not fail you, " he said coldly. "Have you money for thejourney?"

The boy flushed as he remembered that little was left of what JosephAshburn had given him. Crispin saw the flush, and reading aright itsmeaning, he drew from his pocket a purse that he had been fingering, and placed it quietly upon the table. "There are fifty Caroluses in thatbag. That should suffice to carry you to France. Fare you well until wemeet at Calais. "

And without giving the boy time to utter thanks that might be unwilling, he quickly left the room. 

Within the hour he was in the saddle, and his horse's head was turnednorthwards once more. 

He rode through Newport some three hours later without drawing rein. Bythe door of the Raven Inn stood a travelling carriage, upon which he didnot so much as bestow a look. 

By the merest thread hangs at times the whole of a man's future life, the destinies even of men as yet unborn. So much may depend indeed upona glance, that had not Crispin kept his eyes that morning upon the greyroad before him, had he chanced to look sideways as he passed the RavenInn at Newport, and seen the Ashburn arms displayed upon the panels ofthat coach, he would of a certainty have paused. And had he done so, hiswhole destiny would assuredly have shaped a different course from thatwhich he was unconsciously steering. 

CHAPTER XXIII. GREGORY'S ATTRITION

Joseph's journey to London was occasioned by his very natural anxiety toassure himself that Crispin was caught in the toils of the net he had socunningly baited for him, and that at Castle Marleigh he would troublethem no more. To this end he quitted Sheringham on the day afterCrispin's departure. 

Not a little perplexed was Cynthia at the topsy-turvydom in which thatmorning she had found her father's house. Kenneth was gone; he had leftin the dead of night, and seemingly in haste and suddenness, since onthe previous evening there had been no talk of his departing. Her fatherwas abed with a wound that made him feverish. Their grooms were allsick, and wandered in a dazed and witless fashion about the castle, their faces deadly pale and their eyes lustreless. In the hall she hadfound a chaotic disorder upon descending, and one of the panels of thewainscot she saw was freshly cracked. 

Slowly the idea forced itself upon her mind that there had been brawlingthe night before, yet was she far from surmising the motives that couldhave led to it. The conclusion she came to in the end was that the menhad drunk deep, that in their cups they had waxed quarrelsome, and thatswords had been drawn. 

Of Joseph then she sought enlightenment, and Joseph lied righthandsomely, like the ready-witted knave he was. A wondrously plausiblestory had he for her ear; a story that played cunningly upon herknowledge of the compact that existed between Kenneth and Sir Crispin. 

"You may not know, " said he--full well aware that she did know--"thatwhen Galliard saved Kenneth's life at Worcester he exacted from thelad the promise that in return Kenneth should aid him in some vengefulbusiness he had on hand. "

Cynthia nodded that she understood or that she knew, and glibly Josephpursued:

"Last night, when on the point of departing, Crispin, who had drunkover-freely, as is his custom, reminded Kenneth of his plighted word, and demanded of the boy that he should upon the instant go forth withhim. Kenneth replied that the hour was overlate to be setting out upona journey, and he requested Galliard to wait until to-day, when hewould be ready to fulfil what he had promised. But Crispin retorted thatKenneth was bound by his oath to go with him when he should require it, and again he bade the boy make ready at once. Words ensued between them, the boy insisting upon waiting until to-day, and Crispin insisting uponhis getting his boots and cloak and coming with him there and then. Moreheated grew the argument, till in the end Galliard, being put out oftemper, snatched at his sword, and would assuredly have spitted theboy had not your father interposed, thereby getting himself wounded. Thereafter, in his drunken lust Sir Crispin went the length of wantonlycracking that panel with his sword by way of showing Kenneth what hehad to expect unless he obeyed him. At that I intervened, and using myinfluence, I prevailed upon Kenneth to go with Galliard as he demanded. To this, for all his reluctance, Kenneth ended by consenting, and sothey are gone. "

By that most glib and specious explanation Cynthia was convinced. True, she added a question touching the amazing condition of the grooms, inreply to which Joseph afforded her a part of the truth. 

"Sir Crispin sent them some wine, and they drank to his departure soheartily that they are not rightly sober yet. "

Satisfied with this explanation Cynthia repaired to her father. 

Now Gregory had not agreed with Joseph what narrative they were to offerCynthia, for it had never crossed his dull mind that the disorder ofthe hall and the absence of Kenneth might cause her astonishment. And sowhen she touched upon the matter of his wound, like the blundering foolhe was, he must needs let his tongue wag upon a tale which, if no lessimaginative than Joseph's, was vastly its inferior in plausibility andhad yet the quality of differing from it totally in substance. 

"Plague on that dog, your lover, Cynthia, " he growled from the mountainof pillows that propped him. "If he should come to wed my daughter afterpinning me to the wainscot of my own hall may I be for ever damned. "

"How?" quoth she. "Do you say that Kenneth did it?"

"Aye, did he. He ran at me ere I could draw, like the coward he is, sinkhim, and had me through the shoulder in the twinkling of an eye. "

Here was something beyond her understanding. What were they concealingfrom her? She set her wits to the discovery and plied her father withanother question. 

"How came you to quarrel?"

"How? 'Twas--'twas concerning you, child, " replied Gregory at random, and unable to think of a likelier motive. 

"How, concerning me?"

"Leave me, Cynthia, " he groaned in despair. "Go, child. I am grievouslywounded. I have the fever, girl. Go; let me sleep. "

"But tell me, father, what passed. "

"Unnatural child, " whined Gregory feebly, "will you plague a sick manwith questions? Would you keep him from the sleep that may mean recoveryto him?"

"Father, dear, " she murmured softly, "if I thought it was as you say, I would leave you. But you know that you are but attempting to concealsomething from me something that I should know, that I must know. Bethink you that it is of my lover that you have spoken. "

By a stupendous effort Gregory shaped a story that to him seemed likely. 

"Well, then, since know you must, " he answered, "this is what befell:we had all drunk over-deep to our shame do I confess it--and growingtenderhearted for you, and bethinking me of your professed distaste toKenneth's suit, I told him that for all the results that were likelyto attend his sojourn at Castle Marleigh, he might as well bear Crispincompany in his departure. He flared up at that, and demanded of me thatI should read him my riddle. Faith, I did by telling him that we werelike to have snow on midsummer's day ere he 'became your husband. Thatspeech of mine so angered him, being as he was all addled with wine andripe for any madness, that he sprang up and drew on me there and then. The others sought to get between us, but he was over-quick, and before Icould do more than rise from the table his sword was through my shoulderand into the wainscot at my back. After that it was clear he couldnot remain here, and I demanded that he should leave upon the instant. Himself he was nothing loath, for he realized his folly, and he mislikedthe gleam of Joseph's eye--which can be wondrous wicked upon occasion. Indeed, but for my intercession Joseph had laid him stark. "

That both her uncle and her father had lied to her--the one cunningly, the other stupidly--she had never a doubt, and vaguely uneasy wasCynthia to learn the truth. Later that day the castle was busy with thebustle of Joseph's departure, and this again was a matter that puzzledher. 

"Whither do you journey, uncle?" she asked of him as he was in the actof stepping out to enter the waiting carriage. 

"To London, sweet cousin, " was his brisk reply. "I am, it seems, becoming a very vagrant in my old age. Have you commands for me?"

"What is it you look to do in London?"

"There, child, let that be for the present. I will tell you perhaps whenI return. The door, Stephen. "

She watched his departure with uneasy eyes and uneasy heart. A fearpervaded her that in all that had befallen, in all that was befallingstill--what ever it might be--some evil was at work, and an evil thathad Crispin for its scope. She had neither reason nor evidence fromwhich to draw this inference. It was no more than the instinct whosevoice cries out to us at times a presage of ill, and oftentimes compelsour attention in a degree far higher than any evidence could command. 

The fear that was in her urged her to seek what information she couldon every hand, but without success. From none could she cull the merestscrap of evidence to assist her. 

But on the morrow she had information as prodigal as it wasunlooked-for, and from the unlikeliest of sources--her father himself. Chafing at his inaction and lured into indiscretions by the subsiding ofthe pain of his wound, Gregory quitted his bed and came below thatnight to sup with his daughter. As his wont had been for years, he drankfreely. That done, alive to the voice of his conscience, and seeking todrown its loud-tongued cry, he drank more freely still, so that in theend his henchman, Stephen, was forced to carry him to bed. 

This Stephen had grown grey in the service of the Ashburns, and amongstmuch valuable knowledge that he had amassed, was a skill in dealing withwounds and a wide understanding of the ways to go about healingthem. This knowledge made him realize how unwise at such a season wasGregory's debauch, and sorrowfully did he wag his head over his master'scondition of stupor. 

Stephen had grave fears concerning him, and these fears were realizedwhen upon the morrow Gregory awoke on fire with the fever. They summoneda leech from Sheringham, and this cunning knave, with a view to addingimportance to the cure he was come to effect, and which in realitypresented no alarming difficulty, shook his head with ominous gravity, and whilst promising to do "all that his skill permitted, " he spoke of aclergyman to help Gregory make his peace with God. For the leech had nocause to suspect that the whole of the Sacred College might have foundthe task beyond its powers. 

A wild fear took Gregory in its grip. How could he die with such a loadas that which he now carried upon his soul? And the leech, seeing howthe matter preyed upon his patient's mind, made shift--but too late--totranquillize him with assurances that he was not really like to die, andthat he had but mentioned a parson so that Gregory in any case should beprepared. 

The storm once raised, however, was not so easily to be allayed, and theconviction remained with Gregory that his sands were well-nigh run, andthat the end could be but a matter of days in coming. 

Realizing as he did how richly he had earned damnation, a frantic terrorwas upon him, and all that day he tossed and turned, now blaspheming, now praying, now weeping. His life had been indeed one protracted courseof wrong-doing, and many had suffered by Gregory's evil ways--many a manand many a woman. But as the stars pale and fade when the sun mounts thesky, so too were the lesser wrongs that marked his earthly pilgrimage ofsin rendered pale or blotted into insignificance by the greater wronghe had done Ronald Marleigh--a wrong which was not ended yet, but whosecompletion Joseph was even then working to effect. If only he could saveCrispin even now in the eleventh hour; if by some means he could warnhim not to repair to the sign of the Anchor in Thames Street. Hisdisordered mind took no account of the fact that in the time that wassped since Galliard's departure, the knight should already have reachedLondon. 

And so it came about that, consumed at once by the desire to makeconfession to whomsoever it might be, and the wish to attempt yet toavert the crowning evil of whose planning he was partly guilty inasmuchas he had tacitly consented to Joseph's schemes, Gregory called for hisdaughter. She came readily enough, hoping for exactly that which wasabout to take place, yet fearing sorely that her hopes would sufferfrustration, and that she would learn nothing from her father. 

"Cynthia, " he cried, in mingled dread and sorrow, "Cynthia, my child, Iam about to die. "

She knew both from Stephen and from the leech that this was far frombeing his condition. Nevertheless her filial piety was at that moment atouching sight. She smoothed his pillows with a gentle grace that wasin itself a soothing caress, even as her soft sympathetic voice wasa caress. She took his hand, and spoke to him endearingly, seeking torelieve the sombre mood whose prey he was become, assuring him that theleech had told her his danger was none so imminent, and that with quietand a little care he would be up and about again ere many days weresped. But Gregory rejected hopelessly all efforts at consolation. 

"I am on my death-bed, Cynthia, " he insisted, "and when I am gone I knownot whom there may be to cheer and comfort your lot in life. Your loveris away on an errand of Joseph's, and it may well betide that he willnever again cross the threshold of Castle Marleigh. Unnatural though Imay seem, sweetheart, my dying wish is that this may be so. "

She looked up in some surprise. 

"Father, if that be all that grieves you, I can reassure you. I do notlove Kenneth. "

"You apprehend me amiss, " said he tartly. "Do you recall the story ofSir Crispin Galliard's life that you had from Kenneth on the night ofJoseph's return?" His voice shook as he put the question. 

"Why, yes. I am not like to forget it, and nightly do I pray, " she wenton, her tongue outrunning discretion and betraying her feelingsfor Galliard, "that God may punish those murderers who wrecked hisexistence. "

"Hush, girl, " he whispered in a quavering voice. "You know not what yousay. "

"Indeed I do; and as there is a just God my prayer shall be answered. "

"Cynthia, " he wailed. His eyes were wild, and the hand that rested inhers trembled violently. "Do you know that it is against your father andyour father's brother that you invoke God's vengeance?"

She had been kneeling at his bedside; but now, when he pronounced thosewords, she rose slowly and stood silent for a spell, her eyes seekinghis with an awful look that he dared not meet. At last:

"Oh, you rave, " she protested, "it is the fever. "

"Nay, child, my mind is clear, and what I have said is true. "

"True?" she echoed, no louder than a whisper, and her eyes grew roundwith horror. "True that you and my uncle are the butchers who slew theircousin, this man's wife, and sought to murder him as well--leaving himfor dead? True that you are the thieves who claiming kinship by virtueof that very marriage have usurped his estates and this his castleduring all these years, whilst he himself went an outcast, homeless anddestitute? Is that what you ask me to believe?"

"Even so, " he assented, with a feeble sob. 

Her face was pale--white to the very lips, and her blue eyes smoulderedbehind the shelter of her drooping lids. She put her hand to her breast, then to her brow, pushing back the brown hair by a mechanical gesturethat was pathetic in the tale of pain it told. For support she wasleaning now against the wall by the head of his couch. In silence shestood so while you might count to twenty; then with a sudden vehemencerevealing the passion of anger and grief that swayed her:

"Why, " she cried, "why in God's name do you tell me this?"

"Why?" His utterance was thick, and his eyes, that were grown dull as asnake's, stared straight before him, daring not to meet his daughter'sglance. "I tell it you, " he said, "because I am a dying man. " And hehoped that the consideration of that momentous fact might melt her, andmight by pity win her back to him--that she was lost to him he realized. 

"I tell you because I am a dying man, " he repeated. "I tell it youbecause in such an hour I fain would make confession and repent, thatGod may have mercy upon my soul. I tell it you, too, because the tragedybegun eighteen years ago is not yet played out, and it may yet be mineto avert the end we had prepared--Joseph and I. Thus perhaps a mercifulGod will place it in my power to make some reparation. Listen, child. It was against us, as you will have guessed, that Galliard enlistedKenneth's services, and here on the night of Joseph's return he calledupon the boy to fulfil him what he had sworn. The lad had no choice butto obey; indeed, I forced him to it by attacking him and compelling himto draw, which is how I came by this wound. 

"Crispin had of a certainty killed Joseph but that your uncle bethoughthim of telling him that his son lived. "

"He saved his life by a lie! That was worthy of him, " said Cynthiascornfully. 

"Nay, child, he spoke the truth, and when Joseph offered to restore theboy to him, he had every intention of so doing. But in the moment ofwriting the superscription to the letter Crispin was to bear to thosethat had reared the child, Joseph bethought him of a foul scheme forGalliard's final destruction. And so he has sent him to London instead, to a house in Thames Street, where dwells one Colonel Pride, whobears Sir Crispin a heavy grudge, and into whose hands he will be thusdelivered. Can aught be done, Cynthia, to arrest this--to save SirCrispin from Joseph's snare?"

"As well might you seek to restore the breath to a dead man, " sheanswered, and her voice was so oddly calm, so cold and bare ofexpression, that Gregory shuddered to hear it. 

"Do not delude yourself, " she added. "Sir Crispin will have reachedLondon long ere this, and by now Joseph will be well on his way to seethat there is no mistake made, and that the life you ruined hopelesslyyears ago is plucked at last from this unfortunate man. Merciful God! amI truly your daughter?" she cried. "Is my name indeed Ashburn, and haveI been reared upon the estates that by crime you gained possession of?Estates that by crime you hold--for they are his; every stone, everystick that goes to make the place belongs to him, and now he has gone tohis death by your contriving. "

A moan escaped her, and she covered her face with her hands. A momentshe stood rocking there--a fair, lissom plant swept by a gale ofineffable emotion. Then the breath seemed to go all out of her in onegreat sigh, and Gregory, who dared not look her way, heard the swish ofher gown, followed by a thud as she collapsed and lay swooning on theground. 

So disturbed at that was Gregory's spirit that, forgetting his wound, his fever, and the death which he had believed impending, he leapt fromhis couch, and throwing wide the door, bellowed lustily for Stephen. Infrightened haste came his henchman to answer the petulant summons, andin obedience to Gregory's commands he went off again as quickly in questof Catherine--Cynthia's woman. 

Between them they bore the unconscious girl to her chamber, leavingGregory to curse himself for having been lured into a confession thatit now seemed to him had been unnecessary, since in his newly foundvitality he realized that death was none so near a thing as thatscoundrelly fool of a leech had led him to believe. 

CHAPTER XXIV. THE WOOING OF CYNTHIA

Cynthia's swoon was after all but brief. Upon recovering consciousnessher first act was to dismiss her woman. She had need to be alone--theneed of the animal that is wounded to creep into its lair and hideitself. And so alone with her sorrow she sat through that long day. 

That her father's condition was grievous she knew to be untrue, so thatconcerning him there was not even that pity that she might have felt hadshe believed--as he would have had her believe that he was dying. 

As she pondered the monstrous disclosure he had made, her heart hardenedagainst him, and even as she had asked him whether indeed she was hisdaughter, so now she vowed to herself that she would be his daughter nolonger. She would leave Castle Marleigh, never again to set eyes uponher father, and she hoped that during the little time she must yetremain there--a day, or two at most--she might be spared the ordeal ofagain meeting a parent for whom respect was dead, and who inspired herwith just that feeling of horror she must have for any man who confessedhimself a murderer and a thief. 

She resolved to repair to London to a sister of her mother's, where forher dead mother's sake she would find a haven extended readily. 

At eventide she came at last from her chamber. 

She had need of air, need of the balm that nature alone can offer insolitude to poor wounded human souls. 

It was a mild and sunny evening, worthy rather of August than ofOctober, and aimlessly Mistress Cynthia wandered towards the cliffsoverlooking Sheringham Hithe. There she sate herself in sad dejectionupon the grass, and gazed wistfully seaward, her mind straying now fromthe sorry theme that had held dominion in it, to the memories that veryspot evoked. 

It was there, sitting as she sat now, her eyes upon the shimmering wasteof sea, and the gulls circling overhead, that she had awakened tothe knowledge of her love for Crispin. And so to him strayed now herthoughts, and to the fate her father had sent him to; and thus backagain to her father and the evil he had wrought. It is matter forconjecture whether her loathing for Gregory would have been as intenseas it was, had another than Crispin Galliard been his victim. 

Her life seemed at an end as she sat that October evening on the cliffs. No single interest linked her to existence; nothing, it seemed, was lefther to hope for till the end should come--and no doubt it would be longin coming, for time moves slowly when we wait. 

Wistful she sat and thought, and every thought begat a sigh, and thenof a sudden--surely her ears had tricked her, enslaved by herimagination--a crisp, metallic voice rang out close behind her. 

"Why are we pensive, Mistress Cynthia?"

There was a catch in her breath as she turned her head. Her cheeks tookfire, and for a second were aflame. Then they went deadly white, andit seemed that time and life and the very world had paused in itsrelentless progress towards eternity. For there stood the object of herthoughts and sighs, sudden and unexpected, as though the earth had casthim up on to her surface. 

His thin lips were parted in a smile that softened wondrously theharshness of his face, and his eyes seemed then to her alight withkindness. A moment's pause there was, during which she sought her voice, and when she had found it, all that she could falter was:

"Sir, how came you here? They told me that you rode to London. "

"Why, so I did. But on the road I chanced to halt, and having halted Idiscovered reason why I should return. "

He had discovered a reason. She asked herself breathlessly what mightthat reason be, and finding herself no answer to the question, she putit next to him. 

He drew near to her before replying. "May I sit with you awhile, Cynthia?"

She moved aside to make room for him, as though the broad cliff had beena narrow ledge, and with the sigh of a weary man finding a resting-placeat last, he sank down beside her. 

There was a tenderness in his voice that set her pulses stirring wildly. Did she guess aright the reason that had caused him to break his journeyand return? That he had done so--no matter what the reason--she thankedGod from her inmost heart, as for a miracle that had saved him from thedoom awaiting him in London town. 

"Am I presumptuous, child, to think that haply the meditation in whichI found you rapt was for one, unworthy though he be, who went hence butsome few days since?"

The ambiguous question drove every thought from her mind, filling it tooverflowing with the supreme good of his presence, and the frantic hopethat she had read aright the reason of it. 

"Have I conjectured rightly?" he asked, since she kept silence. 

"Mayhap you have, " she whispered in return, and then, marvelling at herboldness, blushed. He glanced sharply at her from narrowing eyes. It wasnot the answer he had looked to hear. 

As a father might have done he took the slender hand that rested uponthe grass beside him, and she, poor child, mistaking the promptings ofthat action, suffered it to lie in his strong grasp. With averted headshe gazed upon the sea below, until a mist of tears rose up to blot itout. The breeze seemed full of melody and gladness. God was very goodto her, and sent her in her hour of need this great consolation--aconsolation indeed that must have served to efface whatever sorrow couldhave beset her. 

"Why then, sweet lady, is my task that I had feared to find all fraughtwith difficulty, grown easy indeed. "

And hearing him pause:

"What task is that, Sir Crispin?" she asked, intent on helping him. 

He did not reply at once. He found it difficult to devise an answer. To tell her brutally that he was come to bear her away, willingor unwilling, on behalf of another, was not easy. Indeed, it wasimpossible, and he was glad that inclinations in her which he had littledreamt of, put the necessity aside. 

"My task, Mistress Cynthia, is to bear you hence. To ask you to resignthis peaceful life, this quiet home in a little corner of the world, and to go forth to bear life's hardships with one who, whatever be hisshortcomings, has the all-redeeming virtue of loving you beyond aughtelse in life. "

He gazed intently at her as he spoke, and her eyes fell before hisglance. He noted the warm, red blood suffusing her cheeks, her brow, hervery neck; and he could have laughed aloud for joy at finding so simplethat which he had feared would prove so hard. Some pity, too, creptunaccountably into his stern heart, fathered by the little faith whichin his inmost soul he reposed in Jocelyn. And where, had she resistedhim, he would have grown harsh and violent, her acquiescence struckthe weapons from his hands, and he caught himself well-nigh warning heragainst accompanying him. 

"It is much to ask, " he said. "But love is selfish, and love asks much. "

"No, no, " she protested softly, "it is not much to ask. Rather is itmuch to offer. "

At that he was aghast. Yet he continued:

"Bethink you, Mistress Cynthia, I have ridden back to Sheringham to askyou to come with me into France, where my son awaits us?"

He forgot for the moment that she was in ignorance of his relationshipto him he looked upon as her lover, whilst she gave this mention of hisson, of whose existence she had already heard from her; father, littlethought at that moment. The hour was too full of other things thattouched her more nearly. 

"I ask you to abandon the ease and peace of Sheringham for a life as asoldier's bride that may be rough and precarious for a while, though, truth to tell, I have some influence at the Luxembourg, and friends uponwhose assistance I can safely count, to find your husband honourableemployment, and set him on the road to more. And how, guided by so sweeta saint, can he but mount to fame and honour?"

She spoke no word, but the hand resting in his entwined his fingers inan answering pressure. 

"Dare I then ask so much?" cried he. And as if the ambiguity whichhad marked his speech were not enough, he must needs, as he put thisquestion, bend in his eagerness towards her until her brown tressestouched his swart cheek. Was it then strange that the eagernesswherewith he urged another's suit should have been by her interpreted asher heart would have had it?

She set her hands upon his shoulders, and meeting his eager gaze withthe frank glance of the maid who, out of trust, is fearless in hersurrender:

"Throughout my life I shall thank God that you have dared it, " she madeanswer softly. 

A strange reply he deemed it, yet, pondering, he took her meaning to bethat since Jocelyn had lacked the courage to woo boldly, she was gladthat he had sent an ambassador less timid. 

A pause followed, and for a spell they sat silent, he thinking of howto frame his next words; she happy and content to sit beside him withoutspeech. 

She marvelled somewhat at the strangeness of his wooing, which waslike unto no wooing her romancer's tales had told her of, but thenshe reflected how unlike he was to other men, and therein she saw theexplanation. 

"I wish, " he mused, "that matters were easier; that it might be mineto boldly sue your hand from your father, but it may not be. Even hadevents not fallen out as they have done, it had been difficult; as itis, it is impossible. "

Again his meaning was obscure, and when he spoke of suing for her handfrom her father, he did not think of adding that he would have sued itfor his son. 

"I have no father, " she replied. "This very day have I disowned him. "And observing the inquiry with which his eyes were of a sudden charged:"Would you have me own a thief, a murderer, my father?" she demanded, with a fierceness of defiant shame. 

"You know, then?" he ejaculated. 

"Yes, " she answered sorrowfully, "I know all there is to be known. Ilearnt it all this morning. All day have I pondered it in my shame toend in the resolve to leave Sheringham. I had intended going to Londonto my mother's sister. You are very opportunely come. " She smiled up athim through the tears that were glistening in her eyes. "You come evenas I was despairing--nay, when already I had despaired. "

Sir Crispin was no longer puzzled by the readiness of her acquiescence. Here was the explanation of it. Forced by the honesty of her pure soulto abandon the house of a father she knew at last for what he was, therefuge Crispin now offered her was very welcome. She had determinedbefore he came to quit Castle Marleigh, and timely indeed was his offerof the means of escape from a life that was grown impossible. A greatpity filled his heart. She was selling herself, he thought; acceptingthe proposal which, on his son's behalf, he made, and from which at anyother season, he feared, she would have shrunk in detestation. 

That pity was reflected on his countenance now, and noting itssolemnity, and misconstruing it, she laughed outright, despite herself. He did not ask her why she laughed, he did not notice it; his thoughtswere busy already upon another matter. 

When next he spoke, it was to describe to her the hollow of the roadwhere on the night of his departure from the castle he had been flungfrom his horse. She knew the spot, she told him, and there at dusk uponthe following day she would come to him. Her woman must accompany her, and for all that he feared such an addition to the party might retardtheir flight, yet he could not gainsay her resolution. Her uncle, helearnt from her, was absent from Sheringham; he had set out four daysago for London. For her father she would leave a letter, and in thismatter Crispin urged her to observe circumspection, giving no indicationof the direction of her journey. 

In all he said, now that matters were arranged he was calm, practical, and unloverlike, and for all that she would he had been lessself-possessed, her faith in him caused her, upon reflection, even toadmire this which she conceived to be restraint. Yet, when at parting hedid no more than courteously bend before her, and kiss her hand as anysimpering gallant might have done, she was all but vexed, and not to beoutdone in coldness, she grew frigid. But it was lost upon him. He hadnot a lover's discernment, quickened by anxious eyes that watch for eachflitting change upon his mistress's face. 

They parted thus, and into the heart of Mistress Cynthia there creptthat night a doubt that banished sleep. Was she wise in entrustingherself so utterly to a man of whom she knew but little, and that learntfrom rumours which had not been good? But scarcely was it becauseof that that doubts assailed her. Rather was it because of his cooldeliberateness which argued not the great love wherewith she fain wouldfancy him inspired. 

For consolation she recalled a line that had it great fires were soonburnt out, and she sought to reassure herself that the flame of hislove, if not all-consuming, would at least burn bright and steadfastlyuntil the end of life. And so she fell asleep, betwixt hope and fear, yet no longer with any hesitancy touching the morrow's course. 

In the morning she took her woman into her confidence, and scared herwith it out of what little sense the creature owned. Yet to such purposedid she talk, that when that evening, as Crispin waited by the coach hehad taken, in the hollow of the road, he saw approaching him a portly, middle-aged dame with a valise. This was Cynthia's woman, and Cynthiaherself was not long in following, muffled in a long, black cloak. 

He greeted her warmly--affectionately almost yet with none of therapture to which she held herself entitled as some little recompense forall that on his behalf she left behind. 

Urbanely he handed her into the coach, and, after her, her woman. Thenseeing that he made shift to close the door:

"How is this?" she cried. "Do you not ride with us?"

He pointed to a saddled horse standing by the roadside, and which shehad not noticed. 

"It will be better so. You will be at more comfort in the carriagewithout me. Moreover, it will travel the lighter and the swifter, andspeed will prove our best friend. "

He closed the door, and stepped back with a word of command to thedriver. The whip cracked, and Cynthia flung herself back almost in apet. What manner of lover, she asked herself, was thin and what mannerof woman she, to let herself be borne away by one who made so little useof the arts and wiles of sweet persuasion? To carry her off, and yet notso much as sit beside her, was worthy only of a man who described such ajourney as tedious. She marvelled greatly at it, yet more she marvelledat herself that she did not abandon this mad undertaking. 

The coach moved on and the flight from Sheringham was begun. 

CHAPTER XXV. CYNTHIA'S FLIGHT

Throughout the night they went rumbling on their way at a pace whosesluggishness elicited many an oath from Crispin as he rode a few yardsin the rear, ever watchful of the possibility of pursuit. But there wasnone, nor none need he have feared, since whilst he rode through thecold night, Gregory Ashburn slept as peacefully as a man may with thefever and an evil conscience, and imagined his dutiful daughter safelyabed. 

With the first streaks of steely light came a thin rain to heightenCrispin's discomfort, for of late he had been overmuch in the saddle, and strong though he was, he was yet flesh and blood, and subject toits ills. Towards ten o'clock they passed through Denham. When they wereclear of it Cynthia put her head from the window. She had slept well, and her mood was lighter and happier. As Crispin rode a yard or sobehind, he caught sight of her fresh, smiling face, and it affected himcuriously. The tenderness that two days ago had been his as he talkedto her upon the cliffs was again upon him, and the thought that anon shewould be linked to him by the ties of relationship, was pleasurable. She gave him good morrow prettily, and he, spurring his horse to thecarriage door, was solicitous to know of her comfort. Nor did he againfall behind until Stafford was reached at noon. Here, at the sign of theSuffolk Arms, he called a halt, and they broke their fast on the bestthe house could give them. 

Cynthia was gay, and so indeed was Crispin, yet she noted in him thatcoolness which she accounted restraint, and gradually her spirits sankagain before it. 

To Crispin's chagrin there were no horses to be had. Someone in greathaste had ridden through before them, and taken what relays the hostelrycould give, leaving four jaded beasts in the stable. It seemed, indeed, that they must remain there until the morrow, and in coming to thatconclusion, Sir Crispin's temper suffered sorely. 

"Why need it put you so about, " cried Cynthia, in arch reproach, "sinceI am with you?"

"Blood and fire, madam, " roared Galliard, "it is precisely for thatreason that I am exercised. What if your father came upon us here?"

"My father, sir, is abed with a sword-wound and a fever, " she replied, and he remembered then how Kenneth had spitted Gregory through theshoulder. 

"Still, " he returned, "he will have discovered your flight, and I dareswear we shall have his myrmidons upon our heels. Should they come upwith us we shall hardly find them more gentle than he would be. "

She paled at that, and for a second there was silence. Then her handstole forth upon his arm, and she looked at him with tightened lips anda defiant air. 

"What, indeed, if they do? Are you not with me?" A king had praisedhis daring, and for his valour had dubbed him knight upon a field ofstricken battle; yet the honour of it had not brought him the elationthose words--expressive of her utter faith in him and his prowess--begatin his heart. Upon the instant the delay ceased to fret him. 

"Madam, " he laughed, "since you put it so, I care not who comes. TheLord Protector himself shall not drag you from me. "

It was the nearest he had gone to a passionate speech since they hadleft Sheringham, and it pleased her; yet in uttering it he had stood afull two yards away, and in that she had taken no pleasure. 

Bidding her remain and get what rest she might, he left her, and she, following his straight, lank figure--so eloquent of strength--and thefamiliar poise of his left hand upon the pummel of his sword, felt proudindeed that he belonged to her, and secure in his protection. She satherself at the window when he was gone, and whilst she awaited hisreturn, she hummed a gay measure softly to herself. Her eyes werebright, and there was a flush upon her cheeks. Not even in the wet, greasy street could she find any unsightliness that afternoon. But asshe waited, and the minutes grew to hours, that flush faded, and thesparkle died gradually from her eyes. The measure that she had hummedwas silenced, and her shapely mouth took on a pout of impatience, whichanon grew into a tighter mould, as he continued absent. 

A frown drew her brows together, and Mistress Cynthia's thoughts weremuch as they had been the night before she left Castle Marleigh. Wherewas he? Why came he not? She took up a book of plays that lay upon thetable, and sought to while away the time by reading. The afternoon fadedinto dusk, and still he did not come. Her woman appeared, to ask whethershe should call for lights and at that Cynthia became almost violent. 

"Where is Sir Crispin?" she demanded. And to the dame's quavering answerthat she knew not, she angrily bade her go ascertain. 

In a pet, Cynthia paced the chamber whilst Catherine was gone upon thaterrand. Did this man account her a toy to while away the hours for whichhe could find no more profitable diversion, and to leave her to die ofennui when aught else offered? Was it a small thing that he had asked ofher, to go with him into a strange land, that he should show himself solittle sensible of the honour done him?

With such questions did she plague herself, and finding them eitherunanswerable, or answerable only by affirmatives, she had well-nighresolved upon leaving the inn, and making her way back to London to seekout her aunt, when the door opened and her woman reappeared. 

"Well?" cried Cynthia, seeing her alone. "Where is Sir Crispin?"

"Below, madam. "

"Below?" echoed she. "And what, pray, doth he below?"

"He is at dice with a gentleman from London. "

In the dim light of the October twilight the woman saw not the suddenpallor of her mistress's cheeks, but she heard the gasp of pain thatwas almost a cry. In her mortification, Cynthia could have wept had shegiven way to her feelings. The man who had induced her to elope with himsat at dice with a gentleman from London! Oh, it was monstrous! At thethought of it she broke into a laugh that appalled her tiring-woman;then mastering her hysteria, she took a sudden determination. 

"Call me the host, " she cried, and the frightened Catherine obeyed herat a run. 

When the landlord came, bearing lights, and bending his aged backobsequiously:

"Have you a pillion?" she asked abruptly. "Well, fool, why do you stare?Have you a pillion?"

"I have, madam. "

"And a knave to ride with me, and a couple more as escort?"

"I might procure them, but--"

"How soon?"

"Within half an hour, but--"

"Then go see to it, " she broke in, her foot beating the groundimpatiently. 

"But, madam--"

"Go, go, go!" she cried, her voice rising at each utterance of thatimperative. 

"But, madam, " the host persisted despairingly, and speaking quickly sothat he might get the words out, "I have no horses fit to travel tenmiles. "

"I need to go but five, " she retorted quickly, her only thought being toget the beasts, no matter what their condition. "Now, go, and come notback until all is ready. Use dispatch and I will pay you well, and aboveall, not a word to the gentleman who came hither with me. "

The sorely-puzzled host withdrew to do her bidding, won to it by herpromise of good payment. 

Alone she sat for half an hour, vainly fostering the hope that erethe landlord returned to announce the conclusion of his preparations, Crispin might have remembered her and come. But he did not appear, andin her solitude this poor little maid was very miserable, and shedsome tears that had still more of anger than sorrow in their source. Atlength the landlord came. She summoned her woman, and bade her follow bypost on the morrow. The landlord she rewarded with a ring worth twentytimes the value of the service, and was led by him through a side doorinto the innyard. 

Here she found three horses, one equipped with the pillion on which shewas to ride behind a burly stableboy. The other two were mounted bya couple of stalwart and well-armed men, one of whom carried afunnel-mouthed musketoon with a swagger that promised prodigies ofvalour. 

Wrapped in her cloak, she mounted behind the stable-boy, and bade himset out and take the road to Denham. Her dream was at an end. 

Master Quinn, the landlord, watched her departure with eyes thatwere charged with doubt and concern. As he made fast the door of thestableyard after she had passed out, he ominously shook his hoary headand muttered to himself humble, hostelry-flavoured philosophies touchingthe strange ways of men with women, and the stranger ways of women withmen. Then, taking up his lanthorn, he slowly retraced his steps to thebuttery where his wife was awaiting him. 

With sleeves rolled high above her pink and deeply-dimpled elbows stoodMistress Quinn at work upon the fashioning of a pastry, when her husbandentered and set down his lanthorn with a sigh. 

"To be so plagued, " he growled. "To be browbeaten by a slip of awench--a fine gentleman's baggage with the airs and vapours of a lady ofquality. Am I not a fool to have endured it?"

"Certainly you are a fool, " his wife agreed, kneading diligently, "whatever you may have endured. What now?"

His fat face was puckered into a thousand wrinkles. His little eyesgazed at her with long-suffering malice. 

"You are my wife, " he answered pregnantly, as who would say: Thus ismy folly clearly proven! and seeing that the assertion was not one thatadmitted of dispute, Mistress Quinn was silent. 

"Oh, 'tis ill done!" he broke out a moment later. "Shame on me for it;it is ill done!"

"If you have done it 'tis sure to be ill done, and shame on you in goodsooth--but for what?" put in his wife. 

"For sending those poor jaded beasts upon the road. "

"What beasts?"

"What beasts? Do I keep turtles? My horses, woman. "

"And whither have you sent them?"

"To Denham with the baggage that came hither this morning in the companyof that very fierce gentleman who was in such a pet because we had nohorses. "

"Where is he?" inquired the hostess. 

"At dice with those other gallants from town. "

"At dice quotha? And she's gone, you say?" asked Mrs. Quinn, pausing inher labours squarely to face her husband. 

"Aye, " said he. 

"Stupid!" rejoined his docile spouse, vexed by his laconic assent. "Doyou mean she has run away?"

"Tis what anyone might take from what I have told you, " he answeredsweetly. 

"And you have lent her horses and helped her to get away, and you leaveher husband at play in there?"

"You have seen her marriage lines, I make no doubt, " he sneeredirrelevantly. 

"You dolt! If the gentleman horsewhips you, you will have richly earnedit. "

"Eh? What?" gasped he, and his rubicund cheeks lost something of theirhigh colour, for here was a possibility that had not entered into hiscalculations. But Mistress Quinn stayed not to answer him. Already shewas making for the door, wiping the dough from her hands on to her apronas she went. A suspicion of her purpose flashed through her husband'smind. 

"What would you do?" he inquired nervously. 

"Tell the gentleman what has taken place. "

"Nay, " he cried, resolutely barring her way. "Nay. That you shall not. Would you--would you ruin me?"

She gave him a look of contempt, and dodging his grasp she gained thedoor and was half-way down the passage towards the common room before hehad overtaken her and caught her round the middle. 

"Are you mad, woman?" he shouted. "Will you undo me?"

"Do you undo me, " she bade him, snatching at his hands. But he clutchedwith the tightness of despair. 

"You shall not go, " he swore. "Come back and leave the gentleman tomake the discovery for himself. I dare swear it will not afflict himovermuch. He has abandoned her sorely since they came; not a doubt ofit but that he is weary of her. At least he need not know I lent herhorses. Let him think she fled a-foot, when he discovers her departure. "

"I will go, " she answered stubbornly, dragging him with her a yard ortwo nearer the door. "The gentleman shall be warned. Is a woman to runaway from her husband in my house, and the husband never be warned ofit?"

"I promised her, " he began. 

"What care I for your promises?" she asked. "I will tell him, so that hemay yet go after her and bring her back. "

"You shall not, " he insisted, gripping her more closely. But at thatmoment a delicately mocking voice greeted their ears. 

"Marry, 'tis vastly diverting to hear you, " it said. They looked round, to find one of the party of town sparks that had halted at the innstanding arms akimbo in the narrow passage, clearly waiting for themto make room. "A touching sight, sir, " said he sardonically to thelandlord. "A wondrous touching sight to behold a man of your yearsplaying the turtle-dove to his good wife like the merest fledgeling. It grieves me to intrude myself so harshly upon your cooing, thoughif you'll but let me pass you may resume your chaste embrace withoutuneasiness, for I give you my word I'll never look behind me. "

Abashed, the landlord and his dame fell apart. Then, ere the gentlemancould pass her, Mistress Quinn, like a true opportunist, sped swiftlydown the passage and into the common room before her husband could againdetain her. 

Now, within the common room of the Suffolk Arms Sir Crispin sat face toface with a very pretty fellow, all musk and ribbons, and surrounded bysome half-dozen gentlemen on their way to London who had halted to restat Stafford. 

The pretty gentleman swore lustily, affected a monstrous wicked look, assured that he was impressing all who stood about with some conceit ofthe rakehelly ways he pursued in town. 

A game started with crowns to while away the tedium of the enforcedsojourn at the inn had grown to monstrous proportions. Fortune hadfavoured the youth at first, but as the stakes grew her favours to himdiminished, and at the moment that Cynthia rode out of the inn-yard, Mr. Harry Foster flung his last gold piece with an oath upon the table. 

"Rat me, " he groaned, "there's the end of a hundred. "

He toyed sorrowfully with the red ribbon in his black hair, and Crispin, seeing that no fresh stake was forthcoming, made shift to rise. But thecoxcomb detained him. 

"Tarry, sir, " he cried, "I've not yet done. 'Slife, we'll make a nightof it. "

He drew a ring from his finger, and with a superb gesture of disdainpushed it across the board. 

"What'll ye stake?" And, in the same breath, "Boy, another stoup, " hecried. 

Crispin eyed the gem carelessly. 

"Twenty Caroluses, " he muttered. 

"Rat me, sir, that nose of yours proclaims you a jew, without more. Saytwenty-five, and I'll cast. "

With a tolerant smile, and the shrug of a man to whom twenty-five ora hundred are of like account, Crispin consented. They threw; Crispinpassed and won. 

"What'll ye stake?" cried Mr. Foster, and a second ring followed thefirst. 

Before Crispin could reply, the door leading to the interior of the innwas flung open, and Mrs. Quinn, breathless with exertion and excitement, came scurrying across the room. In the doorway stood the host inhesitancy and fear. Bending to Crispin's ear, Mrs. Quinn delivered hermessage in a whisper that was heard by most of those who were about. 

"Gone!" cried Crispin in consternation. 

The woman pointed to her husband, and Crispin, understanding from thisthat she referred him to the host, called to him. 

"What know you, landlord?" he shouted. "Come hither, and tell me whitheris she gone!"

"I know not, " replied the quaking host, adding the particulars ofCynthia's departure, and the information that the lady seemed in greatanger. 

"Saddle me a horse, " cried Crispin, leaping to his feet, and pitchingMr. Foster's trinket upon the table as though it were a thing of novalue. "Towards Denham you say they rode? Quick, man!" And as the hostdeparted he swept the gold and the ring he had won into his pocketspreparing to depart. 

"Hoity toity!" cried Mr. Foster. "What sudden haste is this?"

"I am sorry, sir, that Fortune has been unkind to you, but I must go. Circumstances have arisen which--"

"D--n your circumstances!" roared Foster, get ting on his feet. "You'llnot leave me thus!"

"With your permission, sir, I will. "

"But you shall not have my permission!"

"Then I shall be so unfortunate as to go without it. But I shallreturn. "

"Sir, 'tis an old legend, that!"

Crispin turned about in despair. To be embroiled now might ruineverything, and by a miracle he kept his temper. He had a moment tospare while his horse was being saddled. 

"Sir, " he said, "if you have upon your pretty person trinkets to halfthe value of what I have won from you, I'll stake the whole againstthem on one throw, after which, no matter what the result, I take mydeparture. Are you agreed?"

There was a murmur of admiration from those present at the recklessnessand the generosity of the proposal, and Foster was forced to accept it. Two more rings he drew forth, a diamond from the ruffles at his throat, and a pearl that he wore in his ear. The lot he set upon the board, andCrispin threw the winning cast as the host entered to say that his horsewas ready. 

He gathered the trinkets up, and with a polite word of regret he wasgone, leaving Mr. Harry Foster to meditate upon the pledging of one ofhis horses to the landlord in discharge of his lodging. 

And so it fell out that before Cynthia had gone six miles along the roadto Denham, one of her attendants caught a rapid beat of hoofs behindthem, and drew her attention to it, suggesting that they were beingfollowed. Faster Cynthia bade them travel, but the pursuer gainedupon them at every stride. Again the man drew her attention to it, andproposed that they should halt and face him who followed. The possessionof the musketoon gave him confidence touching the issue. But Cynthiashuddered at the thought, and again, with promises of rich reward, urgedthem to go faster. Another mile they went, but every moment brought thepursuing hoof-beats nearer and nearer, until at last a hoarse challengerang out behind them, and they knew that to go farther would be vain;within the next half-mile, ride as they might, their pursuer would beupon them. 

The night was moonless, yet sufficiently clear for objects to beperceived against the sky, and presently the black shadow of him whorode behind loomed up upon the road, not a hundred paces off. 

Despite Cynthia's orders not to fire, he of the musketoon raised hisweapon under cover of the darkness and blazed at the approaching shadow. 

Cynthia cried out--a shriek of dismay it was; the horses plunged, andSir Crispin laughed aloud as he bore down upon them. He of the musketoonheard the swish of a sword being drawn, and saw the glitter of the bladein the dark. A second later there was a shock as Crispin's horse dashedinto his, and a crushing blow across the forehead, which Galliarddelivered with the hilt of his rapier, sent him hurtling from thesaddle. His comrade clapped spurs to his horse at that and was running arace with the night wind in the direction of Denham. 

Before Cynthia quite knew what had happened the seat on the pillion infront of her was empty, and she was riding back to Stafford with Crispinbeside her, his hand upon the bridle of her horse. 

"You little fool!" he said half-angrily, half-gibingly; and thereafterthey rode in silence--she too mortified with shame and anger to ventureupon words. 

That journey back to Stafford was a speedy one, and soon they stoodagain in the inn-yard out of which she had ridden but an hour ago. Avoiding the common room, Crispin ushered her through the side door bywhich she had quitted the house. The landlord met them in the passage, and looking at Crispin's face the pallor and fierceness of it drove himback without a word. 

Together they ascended to the chamber where in solitude she hadspent the day. Her feelings were those of a child caught in an act ofdisobedience, and she was angry with herself and her weakness thatit should be so. Yet within the room she stood with bent head, neverglancing at her companion, in whose eyes there was a look of blendedanger and amazement as he observed her. At length in calm, level tones:

"Why did you run away?" he asked. 

The question was to her anger as a gust of wind to a smouldering fire. She threw back her head defiantly, and fixed him with a glance as fierceas his own. 

"I will tell you, " she cried, and suddenly stopped short. The fire diedfrom her eyes, and they grew wide in wonder--in fascinated wonder--tosee a deep stain overspreading one side of his grey doublet, from theleft shoulder downwards. Her wonder turned to horror as she realized thenature of that stain and remembered that one of her men had fired uponhim. 

"You are wounded?" she faltered. 

A sickly smile came into his face, and seemed to accentuate its pallor. He made a deprecatory gesture. Then, as if in that gesture he hadexpended his last grain of strength, he swayed suddenly as he stood. He made as if to reach a chair, but at the second step he stumbled, andwithout further warning he fell prone at her feet, his left hand uponhis heart, his right outstretched straight from the shoulder. The lossof blood he had sustained, following upon the fatigue and sleeplessnessthat had been his of late, had demanded its due from him, man of ironthough he was. 

Upon the instant her anger vanished. A great fear that he was deaddescended upon her, and to heighten the horror of it came the thoughtthat he had received his death-wound through her agency. With a moan ofanguish she went down upon her knees beside him. She raised his headand pillowed it in her lap, calling to him by name, as though hervoice alone must suffice to bring him back to life and consciousness. Instinctively she unfastened his doublet at the neck, and sought to drawit away that she might see the nature of his hurt and staunch the woundif possible, but her strength ebbed away from her, and she abandoned hertask, unable to do more than murmur his name. 

"Crispin, Crispin, Crispin!"

She stooped and kissed the white, clammy forehead, then his lips, andas she did so a tremor ran through her, and he opened his eyes. A momentthey looked dull and lifeless, then they waxed questioning. 

A second ago these two had stood in anger with the width of the roombetwixt them; now, in a flash, he found his head on her lap, her lips onhis. How came he there? What meant it?

"Crispin, Crispin, " she cried, "thank God you did but swoon!"

Then the awakening of his soul came swift upon the awakening of hisbody. He lay there, oblivious of his wound, oblivious of his mission, oblivious of his son. He lay with senses still half dormant andcomprehension dulled, but with a soul alert he lay, and was supremelyhappy with a happiness such as he had never known in all his ill-starredlife. 

In a feeble voice he asked:

"Why did you run away?"

"Let us forget it, " she answered softly. 

"Nay--tell me first. "

"I thought--I thought--" she stammered; then, gathering courage, "Ithought you did not really care, that you made a toy of me, " said she. "When they told me that you sat at dice with a gentleman from London Iwas angry at your neglect. If you loved me, I told myself, you would nothave used me so, and left me to mope alone. "

For a moment Crispin let his grey eyes devour her blushing face. Thenhe closed them and pondered what she had said, realization breaking uponhim now like a great flood. The light came to him in one blinding yetall-illuming flash. A hundred things that had puzzled him in the lasttwo days grew of a sudden clear, and filled him with a joy unspeakable. He dared scarce believe that he was awake, and Cynthia by him--that hehad indeed heard aright what she had said. How blind he had been, hownescient of himself!

Then, as his thoughts travelled on to the source of the misapprehensionhe remembered his son, and the memory was like an icy hand upon histemples that chilled him through and through. Lying there with eyesstill closed he groaned. Happiness was within his grasp at last. Lovemight be his again did he but ask it, and the love of as pure and sweeta creature as ever God sent to chasten a man's life. A great tendernesspossessed him. A burning temptation to cast to the winds his plightedword, to make a mock of faith, to deride honour, and to seize this womanfor his own. She loved him he knew it now; he loved her--the knowledgehad come as suddenly upon him. Compared with this what could his faith, his word, his honour give him? What to him, in the face of this, wasthat paltry fellow, his son, who had spurned him!

The hardest fight he ever fought, he fought it there, lying supine uponthe ground, his head in her lap. 

Had he fought it out with closed eyes, perchance honour and his plightedword had won the day; but he opened them, and they met Cynthia's. 

A while they stayed thus; the hungry glance of his grey eyes peeringinto the clear blue depths of hers; and in those depths his soul wasdrowned, his honour stifled. 

"Cynthia, " he cried, "God pity me, I love you!" And he swooned again. 

CHAPTER XXVI. TO FRANCE

That cry, which she but half understood, was still ringing in her ears, when the door was of a sudden flung open, and across the threshold avery daintily arrayed young gentleman stepped briskly, the expostulatinglandlord following close upon his heels. 

"I tell thee, lying dog, " he cried, "I saw him ride into the yard, and, 'fore George, he shall give me the chance of mending my losses. Be offto your father, you Devil's natural. "

Cynthia looked up in alarm, whereupon that merry blood catching sight ofher, halted in some confusion at what he saw. 

"Rat me, madam, " he cried, "I did not know--I had not looked to--" Hestopped, and remembering at last his manners he made her a low bow. 

"Your servant, madam, " said he, "your servant Harry Foster. "

She gazed at him, her eyes full of inquiry, but said nothing, whereatthe pretty gentleman plucked awkwardly at his ruffles and wished himselfelsewhere. 

"I did not know, madam, that your husband was hurt. "

"He is not my husband, sir, " she answered, scarce knowing what she said. 

"Gadso!" he ejaculated. "Yet you ran away from him?"

Her cheeks grew crimson. 

"The door, sir, is behind you. "

"So, madam, is that thief the landlord, " he made answer, no whitabashed. "Come hither, you bladder of fat, the gentleman is hurt. "

Thus courteously summoned, the landlord shuffled forward, and Mr. Foster begged Cynthia to allow him with the fellow's aid to see to thegentleman's wound. Between them they laid Crispin on a couch, and thetown spark went to work with a dexterity little to have been expectedfrom his flippant exterior. He dressed the wound, which was in theshoulder and not in itself of a dangerous character, the loss of bloodit being that had brought some gravity to the knight's condition. Theypropped his head upon a pillow, and presently he sighed and, opening hiseyes, complained of thirst, and was manifestly surprised at seeing thecoxcomb turned leech. 

"I came in search of you to pursue our game, " Foster explained when theyhad ministered to him, "and, 'fore George, I am vastly grieved to findyou in this condition. "

"Pish, sir, my condition is none so grievous--a scratch, no more, andwere my heart itself pierced the knowledge that I have gained--" Hestopped short. "But there, sir, " he added presently, "I am gratefulbeyond words for your timely ministration, and if to my debt you willadd that of leaving me awhile to rest, I shall appreciate it. "

His glance met Cynthia's and he smiled. The host coughed significantly, and shuffled towards the door. But Master Foster made no shift to move;but stood instead beside Galliard, though in apparent hesitation. 

"I should like a word with you ere I go, " he said at length. Thenturning and perceiving the landlord standing by the door in an attitudeof eloquent waiting: "Take yourself off, " he cried to him. "Crush me, may not one gentleman say a word to another without being forced tospeak into your inquisitive ears as well? You will forgive my heat, madam, but, God a'mercy, that greasy rascal tries me sorely. "

"Now, sir, " he resumed, when the host was gone. "I stand thus: I havelost to you to-day a sum of money which, though some might accountconsiderable, is in itself no more than a trifle. 

"I am, however, greatly exercised at the loss of certain trinkets whichhave to me a peculiar value, and which, to be frank, I staked in amoment of desperation. I had hoped, sir, to retrieve my losses o'er afriendly main this evening, for I have still to stake a coach and fourhorses--as noble a set of beasts as you'll find in England, aye ratme. Your wound, sir, renders it impossible for me to ask you to giveyourself the fatigue of obliging me. I come, then, to propose that youreturn me those trinkets against my note of hand for the amount that wasstaked on them. I am well known in town, sir, " he added hurriedly, "andyou need have no anxiety. "

Crispin stopped him with a wave of the hand. 

"I have none, sir, in that connexion, and I am willing to do as yousuggest. " He thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew forth the rings, the brooch and the ear-ring he had won. "Here, sir, are your trinkets. "

"Sir, " cried Mr. Foster, thrown into some confusion by Galliard'sunquestioning generosity, "I am indebted to you. Rat me, sir, I amindeed. You shall have my note of hand on the instant. How much shall wesay?"

"One moment, Mr. Foster, " said Crispin, an idea suddenly occurring tohim. "You mentioned horses. Are they fresh?"

"As June roses. "

"And you are returning to London, are you not?"

"I am. "

"When do you wish to proceed?"

"To-morrow. "

"Why, then, sir, I have a proposal to make which will remove the need ofyour note of hand. Lend me your horses, sir, to reach Harwich. I wish toset out at once!"

"But your wound?" cried Cynthia. "You are still faint. "

"Faint! Not I. I am awake and strong. My wound is no wound, for ascratch may not be given that name. So there, sweetheart. " He laughed, and drawing down her head, he whispered the words: "Your father. " Thenturning again to Foster. "Now, sir, " he continued, "there are fourtolerable posthorses of mine below, on which you can follow tomorrow toHarwich, there exchanging them again for your own, which you shall findawaiting you, stabled at the Garter Inn. For this service, to me ofimmeasurable value, I will willingly cede those gewgaws to you. "

"But, rat me, sir, " cried Foster in bewilderment, "tis toogenerous--'pon honour it is. I can't consent to it. No, rat me, Ican't. "

"I have told you how great a boon you will confer. Believe me, sir, tome it is worth twice, a hundred times the value of those trinkets. "

"You shall have my horses, sir, and my note of hand as well, " saidFoster firmly. 

"Your note of hand is of no value to me, sir. I look to leave Englandto-morrow, and I know not when I may return. "

Thus in the end it came about that the bargain was concluded. Cynthia'smaid was awakened and bidden to rise. The horses were harnessed toCrispin's coach, and Crispin, leaning upon Harry Foster's arm, descendedand took his place within the carriage. 

Leaving the London blood at the door of the Suffolk Arms, crushing, burning, damning and ratting himself at Crispin's magnificence, theyrolled away through the night in the direction of Ipswich. 

Ten o'clock in the morning beheld them at the door of the Garter Inn atHarwich. But the jolting of the coach had so hardly used Crispin that hehad to be carried into the hostelry. He was much exercised touching theLady Jane and his inability to go down to the quay in quest of her, whenhe was accosted by a burly, red-faced individual who bluntly asked himwas he called Sir Crispin Galliard. Ere he could frame an answer the manhad added that he was Thomas Jackson, master of the Lady Jane--at whichpiece of good news Crispin felt like to shout for joy. 

But his reflection upon his present position, when at last he lay in theschooner's cabin, brought him the bitter reverse of pleasure. He had setout to bring Cynthia to his son; he had pledged his honour to accomplishit. How was he fulfilling his trust? In his despondency, during a momentwhen alone, he cursed the knave that had wounded him for his clumsinessin not having taken a lower aim when he fired, and thus solved him thisugly riddle of life for all time. 

Vainly did he strive to console himself and endeavour to palliate thewrong he had done with the consideration that he was the man Cynthialoved, and not his son; that his son was nothing to her, and that shewould never have accompanied him had she dreamt that he wooed her foranother. 

No. The deed was foul, and rendered fouler still by virtue of thoseother wrongs in whose extenuation it had been undertaken. For a momenthe grew almost a coward. He was on the point of bidding Master Jacksonavoid Calais and make some other port along the coast. But in a momenthe had scorned the craven argument of flight, and determined that comewhat might he would face his son, and lay the truth before him, leavinghim to judge how strong fate had been. As he lay feverish and fretful inthe vessel's cabin, he came well-nigh to hating Kenneth; he rememberedhim only as a poor, mean creature, now a bigot, now a fop, now apsalm-monger, now a roysterer, but ever a hypocrite, ever a coward, and never such a man as he could have taken pride in presenting as hisoffspring. 

They had a fair wind, and towards evening Cynthia, who had been absentfrom his side a little while, came to tell him that the coast of Francegrew nigh. 

His answer was a sigh, and when she chid him for it, he essayed a smilethat was yet more melancholy. For a second he was tempted to confidein her; to tell her of the position in which he found himself and tolighten his load by sharing it with her. But this he dared not do. Cynthia must never know. 

CHAPTER XXVII. THE AUBERGE DU SOLEIL

In a room of the first floor of the Auberge du Soleil, at Calais, thehost inquired of Crispin if he were milord Galliard. At that questionCrispin caught his breath in apprehension, and felt himself turn pale. What it portended, he guessed; and it stifled the hope that had beenrising in him since his arrival, and because he had not found hisson awaiting him either on the jetty or at the inn. He dared ask noquestions, fearing that the reply would quench that hope, which rosedespite himself, and begotten of a desire of which he was hardlyconscious. 

He sighed before replying, and passing his brown, nervous hand acrosshis brow, he found it moist. 

"My name, M. L'hote, is Crispin Galliard. What news have you for me?"

"A gentleman--a countryman of milord's--has been here these three daysawaiting him. "

For a little while Crispin sat quite still, stripped of his last rag ofhope. Then suddenly bracing himself, he sprang up, despite his weakness. 

"Bring him to me. I will see him at once. "

"Tout-a-l'heure, monsieur, " replied the landlord. "At the moment he isabsent. He went out to take the air a couple of hours ago, and is notyet returned. "

"Heaven send he has walked into the sea!" Crispin broke outpassionately. Then as passionately he checked himself. "No, no, myGod--not that! I meant not that. "

"Monsieur will sup?"

"At once, and let me have lights. " The host withdrew, to return a momentlater with a couple of lighted tapers, which he set upon the table. 

As he was retiring, a heavy step sounded on the stair, accompanied bythe clank of a scabbard against the baluster. 

"Here comes milord's countryman, " the landlord announced. 

And Crispin, looking up in apprehension, saw framed in the doorway theburly form of Harry Hogan. 

He sat bolt upright, staring as though he beheld an apparition. Witha sad smile, Hogan advanced, and set his hand affectionately uponGalliard's shoulder. 

"Welcome to France, Crispin, " said he. "If not him whom you looked tofind, you have at least a loyal friend to greet you. "

"Hogan!" gasped the knight. "What make you here? How came you here?Where is Jocelyn?"

The Irishman looked at him gravely for a moment, then sighed and sankdown upon a chair. "You have brought the lady?" he asked. 

"She is here. She will be with us presently. "

Hogan groaned and shook his grey head sorrowfully. 

"But where is Jocelyn?" cried Galliard again, and his haggard facelooked very wan and white as he turned it inquiringly upon hiscompanion. "Why is he not here?"

"I have bad news. "

"Bad news?" muttered Crispin, as though he understood not the meaning ofthe words. "Bad news?" he repeated musingly. Then bracing himself, "Whatis this news?"

"And you have brought the lady too!" Hogan complained. "Faith, I hadhoped that you had failed in that at least. "

"Sdeath, Harry, " Crispin exclaimed. "Will you tell me the news?"

Hogan pondered a moment. Then:

"I will relate the story from the very beginning, " said he. "Some fourhours after your departure from Waltham) my men brought in the malignantwe were hunting. I dispatched my sergeant and the troop forthwith toLondon with the prisoner, keeping just two troopers with me. An hour orso later a coach clattered into the yard, and out of it stepped a short, lean man in black, with a very evil face and a crooked eye, who bawledout that he was Joseph Ashburn of Castle Marleigh, a friend of the LordGeneral's, and that he must have horses on the instant to proceed uponhis journey to London. I was in the yard at the time, and hearing thefull announcement I guessed what his business in London was. He enteredthe inn to refresh himself and I followed him. In the common room thefirst man his eyes lighted on was your son. He gasped at sight of him, and when he had recovered his breath he let fly as round a volley ofblasphemy as ever I heard from the lips of a Puritan. When that wasover, "Fool, " he yells, "what make you here?" The lad stammered and grewconfused. At last--"I was detained here, " says he. "Detained!" thundersthe other, "and by whom?" "By my father, you murdering villain!" was thehot answer. 

"At that Master Ashburn grows very white and very evil-looking. "So, " hesays, in a playful voice, "you have learnt that, have you? Well, by God!the lesson shall profit neither you nor that rascal your father. ButI'll begin with you, you cur. " And with that he seizes a jug of ale thatstood on the table, and empties it over the boy's face. Soul of my body!The lad showed such spirit then as I had never looked to find in him. "Outside, " yells he, tugging at his sword with one hand, and pointingto the door with the other. "Outside, you hound, where I can kill you!"Ashburn laughed and cursed him, and together they flung past me into theyard. The place was empty at the moment, and there, before the clash oftheir blades had drawn interference, the thing was over--and Ashburn hadsent his sword through Jocelyn's heart. "

Hogan paused, and Crispin sat very still and white, his soul in torment. 

"And Ashburn?" he asked presently, in a voice that was singularly hoarseand low. "What became of him? Was he not arrested?"

"No, " said Hogan grimly, "he was not arrested. He was buried. Before hehad wiped his blade I had stepped up to him and accused him of murderinga beardless boy. I remembered the reckoning he owed you, I rememberedthat he had sought to send you to your death; I saw the boy's body stillwarm and bleeding upon the ground, and I struck him with my knuckles onthe mouth. Like the cowardly ruffian he was, he made a pass at me withhis sword before I had got mine out. I avoided it narrowly, and we setto work. 

"People rushed in and would have stopped us, but I cursed them so whilstI fenced, swearing to kill any man that came between us, that they heldoff and waited. I didn't keep them overlong. I was no raw youngsterfresh from the hills of Scotland. I put the point of my sword throughJoseph Ashburn's throat within a minute of our engaging. 

"It was then as I stood in that shambles and looked down upon myhandiwork that I recalled in what favour Master Ashburn was held by theParliament, and I grew sick to think of what the consequences might be. To avoid them I got me there and then to horse, and rode in a straightline for Greenwich, hoping to find the Lady Jane still there. But mymessenger had already sent her to Harwich for you. I was well ahead ofpossible pursuit, and so I pushed on to Dover, and thence I crossed, arriving here three days ago. "

Crispin rose and stepped up to Hogan. "The last time you came to meafter killing a man, Harry, I was of some service to you. You shall findme no less useful now. You will come to Paris with me?"

"But the lady?" gasped Hogan, amazed at Crispin's lack of thought forher. 

"I hear her step upon the stairs. Leave me now, Harry, but as you go, desire the landlord to send for a priest. The lady remains. "

One look of utter bewilderment did Hogan bestow upon Sir Crispin, andfor once his glib, Irish tongue could shape no other words than:

"Soul of my body!"

He wrung Crispin's hand, and in a state of ineffable perplexity hehurried from the room to do what was required of him. 

For a moment Crispin stood by the window, and looking out into the nighthe thanked God from his heart for his solution of the monstrous riddlethat had been set him. 

Then the rustle of a gown drew his attention, and he swung round to findCynthia smiling upon him from the threshold. 

He advanced to meet her, and setting his hands upon her shoulders, heheld her at arm's length, looking down into her eyes. 

"Cynthia, my Cynthia!" he cried. And she, breaking past the barrier ofhis grasp, nestled up to him with a sigh of sweet and unalloyed content.