Read the book: «The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 8», page 5
CHAPTER VII
THE HOODED FACE
They awoke in the grey of the morning; the birds were not yet in full song, but twittered here and there among the woods; the sun was not yet up, but the eastern sky was barred with solemn colours. Half-starved and over-weary as they were, they lay without moving, sunk in a delightful lassitude. And as they thus lay, the clang of a bell fell suddenly upon their ears.
“A bell!” said Dick, sitting up. “Can we be, then, so near to Holywood?”
A little after, the bell clanged again, but this time somewhat nearer hand; and from that time forth, and still drawing nearer and nearer, it continued to sound brokenly abroad in the silence of the morning.
“Nay, what should this betoken?” said Dick, who was now broad awake.
“It is some one walking,” returned Matcham, “and the bell tolleth ever as he moves.”
“I see that well,” said Dick. “But wherefore? What maketh he in Tunstall Woods? Jack,” he added, “laugh at me an ye will, but I like not the hollow sound of it.”
“Nay,” said Matcham, with a shiver, “it hath a doleful note. And the day were not come – ”
But just then the bell, quickening its pace, began to ring thick and hurried, and then it gave a signal hammering jangle, and was silent for a space.
“It is as though the bearer had run for a paternoster-while, and then leaped the river,” Dick observed.
“And now beginneth he again to pace soberly forward,” added Matcham.
“Nay,” returned Dick – “nay, not so soberly, Jack. ’Tis a man that walketh you right speedily. ’Tis a man in some fear of his life, or about some hurried business. See ye not how swift the beating draweth near?”
“It is now close by,” said Matcham.
They were now on the edge of the pit; and as the pit itself was on a certain eminence, they commanded a view over the greater proportion of the clearing, up to the thick woods that closed it in.
The daylight, which was very clear and grey, showed them a riband of white footpath wandering among the gorse. It passed some hundred yards from the pit, and ran the whole length of the clearing, east and west. By the line of its course, Dick judged it should lead more or less directly to the Moat House.
Upon this path, stepping forth from the margin of the wood, a white figure now appeared. It paused a little, and seemed to look about; and then, at a slow pace, and bent almost double, it began to draw near across the heath. At every step the bell clanked. Face it had none; a white hood, not even pierced with eye-holes, veiled the head; and as the creature moved, it seemed to feel its way with the tapping of a stick. Fear fell upon the lads, as cold as death.
“A leper!” said Dick hoarsely.
“His touch is death,” said Matcham. “Let us run.”
“Not so,” returned Dick. “See ye not? – he is stone-blind. He guideth him with a staff. Let us lie still; the wind bloweth towards the path, and he will go by and hurt us not. Alas, poor soul, and we should rather pity him!”
“I will pity him when he is by,” replied Matcham.
The blind leper was now about half-way towards them, and just then the sun rose and shone full on his veiled face. He had been a tall man before he was bowed by his disgusting sickness, and even now he walked with a vigorous step. The dismal beating of his bell, the pattering of the stick, the eyeless screen before his countenance, and the knowledge that he was not only doomed to death and suffering, but shut out for ever from the touch of his fellow-men, filled the lads’ bosoms with dismay; and at every step that brought him nearer, their courage and strength seemed to desert them.
As he came about level with the pit, he paused, and turned his face full upon the lads.
“Mary be my shield! He sees us!” said Matcham faintly.
“Hush!” whispered Dick. “He doth but hearken. He is blind, fool!”
The leper looked or listened, whichever he was really doing, for some seconds. Then he began to move on again, but presently paused once more, and again turned and seemed to gaze upon the lads. Even Dick became dead-white and closed his eyes, as if by the mere sight he might become infected. But soon the bell sounded, and this time, without any further hesitation, the leper crossed the remainder of the little heath and disappeared into the covert of the woods.
“He saw us,” said Matcham. “I could swear it!”
“Tut!” returned Dick, recovering some sparks of courage. “He but heard us. He was in fear, poor soul! An ye were blind, and walked in a perpetual night, ye would start yourself, if ever a twig rustled or a bird cried ‘Peep.’”
“Dick, good Dick, he saw us,” repeated Matcham. “When a man hearkeneth, he doth not as this man; he doth otherwise, Dick. This was seeing; it was not hearing. He means foully. Hark, else, if his bell be not stopped!”
Such was the case. The bell rang no longer.
“Nay,” said Dick, “I like not that. Nay,” he cried again, “I like that little. What may this betoken? Let us go, by the mass!”
“He hath gone east,” added Matcham. “Good Dick, let us go westward straight. I shall not breathe till I have my back turned upon that leper.”
“Jack, y’ are too cowardly,” replied Dick. “We shall go fair for Holywood, or as fair, at least, as I can guide you, and that will be due north.”
They were afoot at once, passed the stream upon some stepping-stones, and began to mount on the other side, which was steeper, towards the margin of the wood. The ground became very uneven, full of knolls and hollows; trees grew scattered or in clumps; it became difficult to choose a path, and the lads somewhat wandered. They were weary, besides, with yesterday’s exertions and the lack of food, and they moved but heavily and dragged their feet among the sand.
Presently, coming to the top of a knoll, they were aware of the leper, some hundred feet in front of them, crossing the line of their march by a hollow. His bell was silent, his staff no longer tapped the ground, and he went before him with the swift and assured footsteps of a man who sees. Next moment he had disappeared into a little thicket.
The lads, at the first glimpse, had crouched behind a tuft of gorse; there they lay, horror-struck.
“Certain, he pursueth us,” said Dick – “certain. He held the clapper of his bell in one hand, saw ye? that it should not sound. Now may the saints aid and guide us, for I have no strength to combat pestilence!”
“What maketh he?” cried Matcham. “What doth he want? Who ever heard the like, that a leper, out of mere malice, should pursue unfortunates? Hath he not his bell to that very end, that people may avoid him? Dick, there is below this something deeper.”
“Nay, I care not,” moaned Dick; “the strength is gone out of me; my legs are like water. The saints be mine assistance!”
“Would ye lie there idle?” cried Matcham. “Let us back into the open. We have the better chance; he cannot steal upon us unawares.”
“Not I,” said Dick. “My time is come; and peradventure he may pass us by.”
“Bend me, then, your bow!” cried the other. “What! will ye be a man?”
Dick crossed himself. “Would ye have me shoot upon a leper?” he cried. “The hand would fail me. Nay, now,” he added – “nay, now, let be. With sound men I will fight, but not with ghosts and lepers. Which this is, I wot not. One or other, Heaven be our protection!”
“Now,” said Matcham, “if this be man’s courage, what a poor thing is man! But sith ye will do naught, let us lie close.”
Then came a single, broken jangle on the bell.
“He hath missed his hold upon the clapper,” whispered Matcham. “Saints! how near he is!”
But Dick answered never a word; his teeth were near chattering.
Soon they saw a piece of the white robe between some bushes; then the leper’s head was thrust forth from behind a trunk, and he seemed narrowly to scan the neighbourhood before he once again withdrew. To their stretched senses the whole bush appeared alive with rustlings and the creak of twigs; and they heard the beating of each other’s heart.
Suddenly, with a cry, the leper sprang into the open close by, and ran straight upon the lads. They, shrieking aloud, separated and began to run different ways. But their horrible enemy fastened upon Matcham, ran him swiftly down, and had him almost instantly a prisoner. The lad gave one scream that echoed high and far over the forest, he had one spasm of struggling, and then all his limbs relaxed, and he fell limp into his captor’s arms.
Dick heard the cry and turned. He saw Matcham fall; and on the instant his spirit and his strength revived. With a cry of pity and anger, he unslung and bent his arblast. But ere he had time to shoot, the leper held up his hand.
“Hold your shot, Dickon!” cried a familiar voice. “Hold your shot, mad wag! Know ye not a friend?”
And then, laying down Matcham on the turf, he undid the hood from off his face, and disclosed the features of Sir Daniel Brackley.
“Sir Daniel!” cried Dick.
“Ay, by the mass, Sir Daniel!” returned the knight. “Would ye shoot upon your guardian, rogue? But here is this – ” And there he broke off and pointing to Matcham, asked – “How call ye him, Dick?”
“Nay,” said Dick, “I call him Master Matcham. Know ye him not? He said ye knew him!”
“Ay,” replied Sir Daniel, “I know the lad”; and he chuckled. “But he has fainted; and, by my sooth, he might have had less to faint for. Hey, Dick? Did I put the fear of death upon you?”
“Indeed, Sir Daniel, ye did that,” said Dick, and sighed again at the mere recollection. “Nay, sir, saving your respect, I had as lief ’a’ met the devil in person; and to speak truth, I am yet all a-quake. But what made ye, sir, in such a guise?”
Sir Daniel’s brow grew suddenly black with anger.
“What made I?” he said. “Ye do well to mind me of it! What? I skulked for my poor life in my own wood of Tunstall, Dick. We were ill sped at the battle; we but got there to be swept among the rout. Where be all my good men-at-arms? Dick, by the mass, I know not! We were swept down; the shot fell thick among us; I have not seen one man in my own colours since I saw three fall. For myself, I came sound to Shoreby, and being mindful of the Black Arrow, got me this gown and bell, and came softly by the path for the Moat House. There is no disguise to be compared with it; the jingle of this bell would scare me the stoutest outlaw in the forest; they would all turn pale to hear it. At length I came by you and Matcham. I could see but evilly through this same hood, and was not sure of you, being chiefly, and for many a good cause, astonished at the finding you together. Moreover, in the open, where I had to go slowly and tap with my staff, I feared to disclose myself. – But see,” he added, “this poor shrew begins a little to revive. A little good canary will comfort the heart of it.”
The knight, from under his long dress, produced a stout bottle, and began to rub the temples and wet the lips of the patient, who returned gradually to consciousness, and began to roll dim eyes from one to another.
“What cheer, Jack?” said Dick. “It was no leper after all; it was Sir Daniel! See!”
“Swallow me a good draught of this,” said the knight. “This will give you manhood. Thereafter I will give you both a meal, and we shall all three on to Tunstall. For, Dick,” he continued, laying forth bread and meat upon the grass, “I will avow to you, in all good conscience, it irks me sorely to be safe between four walls. Not since I backed a horse have I been pressed so hard; peril of life, jeopardy of land and livelihood, and, to sum up, all these losels in the wood to hunt me down. But I be not yet shent. Some of my lads will pick me their way home. Hatch hath ten fellows; Selden, he had six. Nay, we shall soon be strong again; and if I can but buy my peace with my right fortunate and undeserving Lord of York, why, Dick, we’ll be a man again, and go a-horseback!”
And so saying, the knight filled himself a horn of canary, and pledged his ward in dumb show.
“Selden,” Dick faltered – “Selden – ” And he paused again.
Sir Daniel put down the wine untasted.
“How!” he cried, in a changed voice. “Selden? Speak! What of Selden?”
Dick stammered forth the tale of the ambush and the massacre.
The knight heard in silence; but, as he listened, his countenance became convulsed with rage and grief.
“Now here,” he cried, “on my right hand, I swear to avenge it! If that I fail, if that I spill not ten men’s souls for each, may this hand wither from my body! I broke this Duckworth like a rush; I beggared him to his door; I burned the thatch above his head; I drove him from this country; and now, cometh he back to beard me? Nay, but, Duckworth, this time it shall go bitter hard!”
He was silent for some time, his face working.
“Eat!” he cried suddenly. – “And you here,” he added to Matcham, “swear me an oath to follow straight to the Moat House.”
“I will pledge mine honour,” replied Matcham.
“What make I with your honour?” cried the knight. “Swear me upon your mother’s welfare!”
Matcham gave the required oath; and Sir Daniel readjusted the hood over his face, and prepared his bell and staff. To see him once more in that appalling travesty somewhat revived the horror of his two companions. But the knight was soon upon his feet.
“Eat with despatch,” he said, “and follow me yarely to mine house.”
And with that he set forth again into the woods; and presently after the bell began to sound, numbering his steps, and the two lads sat by their untasted meal, and heard it die slowly away up-hill into the distance.
“And so ye go to Tunstall?” Dick inquired.
“Yea, verily,” said Matcham, “when needs must! I am braver behind Sir Daniel’s back than to his face.”
They ate hastily, and set forth along the path through the airy upper levels of the forest, where great beeches stood apart among green lawns, and the birds and squirrels made merry on the boughs. Two hours later they began to descend upon the other side, and already, among the tree-tops, saw before them the red walls and roofs of Tunstall House.
“Here,” said Matcham, pausing, “ye shall take your leave of your friend Jack, whom y’ are to see no more. Come, Dick, forgive him what he did amiss, as he, for his part, cheerfully and lovingly forgiveth you.”
“And wherefore so?” asked Dick. “An we both go to Tunstall, I shall see you yet again, I trow, and that right often.”
“Ye’ll never again see poor Jack Matcham,” replied the other, “that was so fearful and burthensome, and yet plucked you from the river; ye’ll not see him more, Dick, by mine honour!” He held his arms open, and the lads embraced and kissed. “And, Dick,” continued Matcham, “my spirit bodeth ill. Y’ are now to see a new Sir Daniel; for heretofore hath all prospered in his hands exceedingly, and fortune followed him; but now, methinks, when his fate hath come upon him, and he runs the adventure of his life, he will prove but a foul lord to both of us. He may be brave in battle, but he hath the liar’s eye; there is fear in his eye, Dick, and fear is as cruel as the wolf! We go down into that house, St. Mary guide us forth again!”
And so they continued their descent in silence, and came out at last before Sir Daniel’s forest stronghold, where it stood, low and shady, flanked with round towers and stained with moss and lichen, in the lilied waters of the moat. Even as they appeared, the doors were opened, the bridge lowered, and Sir Daniel himself, with Hatch and the parson at his side, stood ready to receive them.
BOOK II
THE MOAT HOUSE
CHAPTER I
DICK ASKS QUESTIONS
The Moat House stood not far from the rough forest road. Externally it was a compact rectangle of red stone, flanked at each corner by a round tower, pierced for archery and battlemented at the top. Within, it enclosed a narrow court. The moat was perhaps twelve feet wide, crossed by a single drawbridge. It was supplied with water by a trench, leading to a forest pool, and commanded, through its whole length, from the battlements of the two southern towers. Except that one or two tall and thick trees had been suffered to remain within half a bowshot of the walls, the house was in a good posture for defence.
In the court Dick found a part of the garrison busy with preparations for defence, and gloomily discussing the chances of a siege. Some were making arrows, some sharpening swords that had long been disused; but, even as they worked, they shook their heads.
Twelve of Sir Daniel’s party had escaped the battle, run the gauntlet through the wood, and come alive to the Moat House. But out of this dozen, three had been gravely wounded: two at Risingham in the disorder of the rout, one by John Amend-All’s marksmen as he crossed the forest. This raised the force of the garrison, counting Hatch, Sir Daniel, and young Shelton, to twenty-two effective men. And more might be continually expected to arrive. The danger lay not, therefore, in the lack of men.
It was the terror of the Black Arrow that oppressed the spirits of the garrison. For their open foes of the party of York, in these most changing times, they felt but a far-away concern. “The world,” as people said in those days, “might change again” before harm came. But for their neighbours in the wood they trembled. It was not Sir Daniel alone who was a mark for hatred. His men, conscious of impunity, had carried themselves cruelly through all the country. Harsh commands had been harshly executed; and of the little band that now sat talking in the court, there was not one but had been guilty of some act of oppression or barbarity. And now, by the fortune of war, Sir Daniel had become powerless to protect his instruments; now, by the issue of some hours of battle, at which many of them had not been present, they had all become punishable traitors to the State, outside the buckler of the law, a shrunken company in a poor fortress that was hardly tenable, and exposed upon all sides to the just resentment of their victims. Nor had there been lacking grisly advertisements of what they might expect.
At different periods of the evening and the night, no fewer than seven riderless horses had come neighing in terror to the gate. Two were from Selden’s troop; five belonged to men who had ridden with Sir Daniel to the field. Lastly, a little before dawn, a spearman had come staggering to the moat-side, pierced by three arrows; even as they carried him in, his spirit had departed; but, by the words that he uttered in his agony, he must have been the last survivor of a considerable company of men.
Hatch himself showed, under his sun-brown, the pallor of anxiety; and when he had taken Dick aside and learned the fate of Selden, he fell on a stone bench and fairly wept. The others, from where they sat on stools or doorsteps in the sunny angle of the court, looked at him with wonder and alarm, but none ventured to inquire the cause of his emotion.
“Nay, Master Shelton,” said Hatch at last – “nay, but what said I? We shall all go. Selden was a man of his hands; he was like a brother to me. Well, he has gone second; well, we shall all follow! For what said their knave rhyme? – ’A black arrow in each black heart.’ Was it not so it went? Appleyard, Selden, Smith, old Humphrey gone; and there lieth poor John Carter, crying, poor sinner, for the priest.”
Dick gave ear. Out of a low window, hard by where they were talking, groans and murmurs came to his ear.
“Lieth he there?” he asked.
“Ay, in the second porter’s chamber,” answered Hatch. “We could not bear him farther, soul and body were so bitterly at odds. At every step we lifted him he thought to wend. But now, methinks, it is the soul that suffereth. Ever for the priest he crieth, and Sir Oliver, I wot not why, still cometh not. ’Twill be a long shrift; but poor Appleyard and poor Selden, they had none.”
Dick stooped to the window and looked in. The little cell was low and dark, but he could make out the wounded soldier lying moaning on his pallet.
“Carter, poor friend, how goeth it?” he asked.
“Master Shelton,” returned the man, in an excited whisper, “for the dear light of heaven, bring the priest. Alack, I am sped: I am brought very low down; my hurt is to the death. Ye may do me no more service; this shall be the last. Now, for my poor soul’s interest, and as a loyal gentleman, bestir you; for I have that matter on my conscience that shall drag me deep.”
He groaned, and Dick heard the grating of his teeth, whether in pain or terror.
Just then Sir Daniel appeared upon the threshold of the hall. He had a letter in one hand.
“Lads,” he said, “we have had a shog, we have had a tumble; wherefore, then, deny it? Rather it imputeth to get speedily again to saddle. This old Harry the Sixt has had the undermost. Wash we, then, our hands of him. I have a good friend that rideth next the duke, the Lord of Wensleydale. Well, I have writ a letter to my friend, praying his good lordship, and offering large satisfaction for the past and reasonable surety for the future. Doubt not but he will lend a favourable ear. A prayer without gifts is like a song without music: I surfeit him with promises, boys – I spare not to promise. What, then, is lacking? Nay, a great thing – wherefore should I deceive you? – a great thing and a difficult: a messenger to bear it. The woods – y’ are not ignorant of that – lie thick with our ill-willers. Haste is most needful; but without sleight and caution all is naught. Which, then, of this company will take me this letter, bear it to my Lord of Wensleydale, and bring me the answer back?”
One man instantly arose.
“I will, an’t like you,” said he. “I will even risk my carcass.”
“Nay, Dicky Bowyer, not so,” returned the knight. “It likes me not. Y’ are sly indeed, but not speedy. Ye were a laggard ever.”
“An’t be so, Sir Daniel, here am I,” cried another.
“The saints forfend!” said the knight. “Y’ are speedy, but not sly. Ye would blunder me headforemost into John Amend-All’s camp. I thank you both for your good courage; but, in sooth, it may not be.”
Then Hatch offered himself, and he also was refused.
“I want you here, good Bennet; y’ are my right hand, indeed,” returned the knight; and then, several coming forward in a group, Sir Daniel at length selected one and gave him the letter.
“Now,” he said, “upon your good speed and better discretion we do all depend. Bring me a good answer back, and before three weeks I will have purged my forest of these vagabonds that brave us to our faces. But mark it well, Throgmorton: the matter is not easy. Ye must steal forth under night, and go like a fox; and how ye are to cross Till I know not, neither by the bridge nor ferry.”
“I can swim,” returned Throgmorton. “I will come soundly, fear not.”
“Well, friend, get ye to the buttery,” replied Sir Daniel. “Ye shall swim first of all in nut-brown ale.” And with that he turned back into the hall.
“Sir Daniel hath a wise tongue,” said Hatch aside to Dick. “See, now, where many a lesser man had glossed the matter over, he speaketh it out plainly to his company. Here is a danger, ’a saith, and here difficulty; and jesteth in the very saying. Nay, by St. Barbary, he is a born captain! Not a man but he is some deal heartened up! See how they fall again to work.”
This praise of Sir Daniel put a thought in the lad’s head.
“Bennet,” he said, “how came my father by his end?”
“Ask me not that,” replied Hatch. “I had no hand nor knowledge in it; furthermore, I will even be silent, Master Dick. For look you, in a man’s own business there he may speak; but of hearsay matters and of common talk, not so. Ask me Sir Oliver – ay, or Carter, if ye will; not me.”
And Hatch set off to make the rounds, leaving Dick in a muse.
“Wherefore would he not tell me?” thought the lad. “And wherefore named he Carter? Carter – nay, then Carter had a hand in it, perchance.”
He entered the house, and passing some little way along a flagged and vaulted passage, came to the door of the cell where the hurt man lay groaning. At his entrance, Carter started eagerly.
“Have ye brought the priest?” he cried.
“Not yet awhile,” returned Dick. “Y’ have a word to tell me first. How came my father, Harry Shelton, by his death?”
The man’s face altered instantly.
“I know not,” he replied doggedly.
“Nay, ye know well,” returned Dick. “Seek not to put me by.”
“I tell you I know not,” repeated Carter.
“Then,” said Dick, “ye shall die unshriven. Here am I, and here shall stay. There shall no priest come near you, rest assured. For of what avail is penitence, an ye have no mind to right those wrongs ye had a hand in? and without penitence, confession is but mockery.”
“Ye say what ye mean not, Master Dick,” said Carter composedly. “It is ill threatening the dying, and becometh you (to speak truth) little. And for as little as it commends you, it shall serve you less. Stay an ye please. Ye will condemn my soul – ye shall learn nothing! There is my last word to you.” And the wounded man turned upon the other side.
Now Dick, to say truth, had spoken hastily, and was ashamed of his threat. But he made one more effort.
“Carter,” he said, “mistake me not. I know ye were but an instrument in the hands of others; a churl must obey his lord; I would not bear heavily on such an one. But I begin to learn upon many sides that this great duty lieth on my youth and ignorance, to avenge my father. Prithee, then, good Carter, set aside the memory of my threatenings, and in pure good-will and honest penitence, give me a word of help.”
The wounded man lay silent; nor, say what Dick pleased, could he extract another word from him.
“Well,” said Dick, “I will go call the priest to you as ye desired; for howsoever ye be in fault to me or mine, I would not be willingly in fault to any, least of all to one upon the last change.”
Again the old soldier heard him without speech or motion; even his groans he had suppressed; and as Dick turned and left the room, he was filled with admiration for that rugged fortitude.
“And yet,” he thought, “of what use is courage without wit? Had his hands been clean, he would have spoken; his silence did confess the secret louder than words. Nay, upon all sides, proof floweth on me. Sir Daniel, he or his men, hath done this thing.”
Dick paused in the stone passage with a heavy heart. At that hour, in the ebb of Sir Daniel’s fortune, when he was beleaguered by the archers of the Black Arrow, and proscribed by the victorious Yorkists, was Dick, also, to turn upon the man who had nourished and taught him, who had severely punished, indeed, but yet unwearyingly protected his youth? The necessity, if it should prove to be one, was cruel.
“Pray Heaven he be innocent!” he said.
And then steps sounded on the flagging, and Sir Oliver came gravely towards the lad.
“One seeketh you earnestly,” said Dick.
“I am upon the way, good Richard,” said the priest. “It is this poor Carter. Alack, he is beyond cure.”
“And yet his soul is sicker than his body,” answered Dick.
“Have ye seen him?” asked Sir Oliver, with a manifest start.
“I do but come from him,” replied Dick.
“What said he – what said he?” snapped the priest, with extraordinary eagerness.
“He but cried for you the more piteously, Sir Oliver. It were well done to go the faster, for his hurt is grievous,” returned the lad.
“I am straight for him,” was the reply. “Well, we have all our sins. We must all come to our latter day, good Richard.”
“Ay, sir; and it were well if we all came fairly,” answered Dick.
The priest dropped his eyes, and with an inaudible benediction hurried on.
“He too!” thought Dick – “he, that taught me in piety! Nay, then, what a world is this, if all that care for me be blood-guilty of my father’s death! Vengeance! Alas! what a sore fate is mine, if I must be avenged upon my friends!”
The thought put Matcham in his head. He smiled at the remembrance of his strange companion, and then wondered where he was. Ever since they had come together to the doors of the Moat House the younger lad had disappeared, and Dick began to weary for a word with him.
About an hour after, mass being somewhat hastily run through by Sir Oliver, the company gathered in the hall for dinner. It was a long, low apartment, strewn with green rushes, and the walls hung with arras in a design of savage men and questing bloodhounds; here and there hung spears and bows and bucklers; a fire blazed in the big chimney; there were arras-covered benches round the wall, and in the midst the table, fairly spread, awaited the arrival of the diners. Neither Sir Daniel nor his lady made their appearance. Sir Oliver himself was absent, and here again there was no word of Matcham. Dick began to grow alarmed, to recall his companion’s melancholy forebodings, and to wonder to himself if any foul play had befallen him in that house.
After dinner he found Goody Hatch, who was hurrying to my lady Brackley.
“Goody,” he said, “where is Master Matcham, I prithee? I saw ye go in with him when we arrived.”
The old woman laughed aloud.
“Ah, Master Dick,” she said, “y’ have a famous bright eye in your head, to be sure!” and laughed again.
“Nay, but where is he, indeed?” persisted Dick.
“Ye will never see him more,” she returned; “never. It is sure.”
“An I do not,” returned the lad, “I will know the reason why. He came not hither of his full free will; such as I am, I am his best protector, and I will see him justly used. There be too many mysteries; I do begin to weary of the game!”
But, as Dick was speaking, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. It was Bennet Hatch that had come unperceived behind him. With a jerk of his thumb, the retainer dismissed his wife.
“Friend Dick,” he said, as soon as they were alone, “are ye a moonstruck natural? An ye leave not certain things in peace, ye were better in the salt sea than here in Tunstall Moat House. Y’ have questioned me; y’ have baited Carter; y’ have frighted the jack-priest with hints. Bear ye more wisely, fool; and even now, when Sir Daniel calleth you, show me a smooth face, for the love of wisdom. Y’ are to be sharply questioned. Look to your answers.”
“Hatch,” returned Dick, “in all this I smell a guilty conscience.”
“An ye go not the wiser, ye will soon smell blood,” replied Bennet. “I do but warn you. And here cometh one to call you.”
