CHAPTER XV.
"God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!"—Henry V.
"Here is the snow thou hast foretold," said Master Marryott to Anthony Underhill, as the cavalcade set out, three hours after midnight.
"And a plague of wind," put in Captain Rumney, with a good humor in which Marryott smelt some purpose of cultivating confidence.
The riders wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and muffled their necks to keep out the pelting flakes. The night being at its darkest, the snow was more "perceptible to feeling" than "to sight," save where it flew and eddied in the light of a torch carried by Bottle at the head of the line, and of a lanthorn that Hal had caused to be attached to the rear of the coach. Between these two dim centres of radiance, the horsemen shivered and grumbled unseen, and cursed their steeds, and wished red murrains and black plagues, and poxes of no designated color, upon the weather.
They passed through Keighley about dawn. Two miles further on, they stopped at an isolated house for breakfast. As Marryott opened the coach curtain (it had been closed against the whirling snow), to convey to the prisoners some cakes and milk, Mistress Hazlehurst motioned Francis to set the platter on a coach seat, and said to Hal:
"If you wish not to murder me, you will let me walk a little rather than eat. I seem to have lost the use of legs and arms, penned up in this cage these two days."
"Nay, 'tis but a day and a half," corrected Marryott. "But you may walk whiles we tarry here, an you choose. The snow is ankle-deep in the road, however."
"I care not if it be knee-deep."
"Will you promise to return to the coach at my word, if I let you out to walk?" Hal did not feel equal to putting her into the coach again by bodily force.
"God's light, yes! What choice have I?"
"And while you walk, I must walk beside you, and Francis at my other side."
"I have said, what choice have I?"
He offered his hand to assist her from the coach. But she leaped out unaided, and started forthwith in the direction whence the travellers had just come. Hal waited for Francis, and then strode after her, holding the Page_by a sleeve. Kit Bottle was busy looking to the refreshment of the horses. Captain Rumney was stalking up and down the road, his whole attention apparently concentrated upon a pot of ale he carried. Anthony Underhill had ridden back to a slightly elevated spot, to keep watch.
Master Marryott was soon at his prisoner's side. She could not, for snow and wind, long maintain the pace at which she had started from the coach. The weather reddened her cheeks, which took hue also from her crimson cloak and hood. Hal thought her very beautiful,—a thing of bloom and rich color in a bleak, white desert. It smote him keenly to remember that she deemed him her brother's slayer. He was half tempted to tell her the truth, now that she was his prisoner and could not go back to undeceive Roger Barnet. But would she believe him? And if she should, was it certain that she might not escape ere the next two days were up? Prudence counselled Hal to take no risks. So, in faintest hope of shaking her hatred a little, of creating at least a doubt in his favor, he fell back on the poor device of which he had already made one or two abortive trials.
"I swear to you, Mistress Hazlehurst," he began, somewhat awkwardly, "'twas not I that gave your brother his unhappy wound. There is something unexplained, touching that occurrence, that will be cleared to you in time."
A little to his surprise, she did not cut short all possible discussion by some sharp derisive or contemptuous answer. Though her tone showed no falling away from conviction, she yet evinced a passive willingness to talk of the matter.
"There hath been explanation enough for me," she answered. "I had the full story of my brother's servants, who saw all."
"The officers of justice could not have had a like story," said Hal, at random. "Else why came they never to Fleetwood house?"
"You well know. The quarrel was witnessed of none but your man and my brother's servants. They kept all quiet; your man, for your safety's sake; my brother's men, for—for the reason—My brother's men kept all quiet, too, till I came home."
"And why did your brother's men so? You broke off there."
"Oh, I care not if I say it! My brother's servants were not as near the encounter as your man was, and they saw ill; they were of a delusion that you struck in self-defence. And my brother, too, bade them hush the matter."
"'Twas as much as to admit that he was the offender."
"Well, what matters that? At best there was little zeal he might expect of his neighbors in visiting the law upon you. He was a man of too strong mettle; he was too hated in the county to hope for justice, even against a Catholic. Well you know that, Sir Valentine Fleetwood! But I would have had my rights of the law, or paid you in mine own way,[27] had not this other means of vengeance come to my hand! Self-defence or no self-defence, you shed my brother's blood, and I will be a cause of the shedding of yours!"
"But I say naught of self-defence. I say I am not he that, rightly or wrongly, shed your brother's blood!"
"God-'a'-mercy, sir, I marvel at you! Tis sheer impudence to deny what mine own family servants saw with their eyes and told me with their lips! Think you, because I am some miles and days from all witnesses of the quarrel, save your own man, my mind is to be clouded upon it?"
"I say only that there is a strange circumstance in all this business, that may not yet be opened to you. Well, I see that till time shall permit explanation, I must despair of seeming other to you than stained with your brother's blood. My word of honor, my oath, avail not—"
"Speak you of oaths and words of honor? There was some talk of oaths two days ago, before the constable of Clown!"
Hal sighed. He did not notice that, in drawing him further into conversation, she had drawn him further from the coach, which was indeed now hidden behind a slight turn of the road.
"Well," quoth he, resignedly, "time shall clear me; and show, too, why I have had to put so admired a lady to so irksome a constraint."
"Say, rather, time shall give your prisoner revenge for all constraint. Think not you have put me to much distress! What says the play? Women can endure mewing up, so that you tie not their tongues!"
"I thank heaven you have not given me cause to tie your tongue!"
"Given you cause,—how?" she asked, looking full at him.
"Why, suppose, in the towns we passed, you had cried out from the coach to people, and I had found the closed curtain of no avail."
"What would you have done then?"
"Bound with a silken kerchief the shapeliest mouth in England! Ay, with these very hands of mine!"
"Ere that were done, I should have made stir enough to draw a concourse. Were I hard put to it, be sure I would attract questioners to whom you'd have to give account."
"Account were easy given. I should declare you were a mad woman committed to my charge."
"More perjury!"
"Nay, there is truly some madness in a woman's taking vengeance into her own small hands."
She answered nothing, and presently they returned to the coach. Captain Rumney stood pensively by his horse, his gaze averted, as if he thought of the past or the far away. He now looked mildly up, and mounted. The other robbers were already on their horses, Bottle at their head. Mistress Hazlehurst let Hal lift her into the coach. Francis followed. Marryott then whistled for Anthony, and got into the saddle.
"The snow falls thicker and thicker," remarked Captain Rumney, in a bland, sociable tone, while the caravan waited for the Puritan.
As soon as Anthony was in place, Hal motioned to Bottle, at whose word the robbers, with whip and rein, set their horses in motion. The harness strained, the coach creaked, the wheels turned reluctantly in the snow. The procession moved forward a short distance; then, suddenly, there was a splitting sound, a rear wheel fell inward, and the adjacent part of the coach dropped heavily to the ground. The vehicle, thereupon, was still, halting the horses with a violent jerk.
Anthony Underhill leaped from his saddle, and turned over the loose wheel. A single glance revealed that the axle had been, within a very short time past, cut nearly through with a saw.
Anthony looked at Master Marryott, who gazed at the axle with a singularly self-communing, close-mouthed expression. All was very clear to Master Marryott; a train of events had rushed through his mind in an eye's twinkling: Mistress Hazlehurst's subjugation of Captain Rumney by the use of her eyes; the nocturnal visit of her Page_to the robber in the single opportunity afforded by Hal's movements; the walk in which she had drawn Hal from the coach at a time when Anthony was on guard and Kit Bottle concerned with the horses. A few words would have sufficed for the message borne by Francis to Rumney, such as, "My mistress desires you to wreck the coach; she will make an opportunity." She had not asked Rumney to rescue her by force, for he might prove a worse captor than her present one. She had not asked him to injure the horses during the night, for the watch kept by Hal might prevent that, or the robber might be unwilling to sacrifice his own animals. What she sought was delay for the coming of Barnet; not an open revolt of the robbers, which might be so victorious as to put her at their mercy. And Rumney had obeyed her to the letter; had, doubtless, after receiving her message, searched the outhouses for a suitable tool; and probably carried at the present moment, beneath his leather jerkin, the hand-saw with which, during Hal's walk with Mistress Hazlehurst, he had severed the axle.
But, whatever lay concealed under his jerkin or his skull, Captain Rumney was now looking down at the wheel with a most surprised, puzzled, curious, how-in-God's-name-could-this-have-come-to-pass expression of face.
It was but the early morning of the fourth day of the flight. Could Hal but defer the inevitable break with his ally, for this day and another! Until the five days were up, an open breach with, or secret flight from, these robbers, meant the risk of either his mission or her safety. For such break or flight might leave her in their hands. This horrible issue could be provided against only by Hal's consigning her to protection in some town or some gentleman's house; but such provision he dared not make till his mission was accomplished, lest she defeat that mission by disclosures that would either cause his own seizure or raise doubts in Barnet as to his identity.
Decidedly, patience was the proper virtue here, and the best policy was that of temporizing.
"'Tis a curious smooth break," said Hal, with an indescribable something in his voice for the benefit of Anthony, and of Kit, who had ridden back to see what stayed the coach. "But I have seen wood break so, when decay hath eaten a straight way through it. Mistress, I rejoice to see you are not hurt by the sudden jar."
He spoke to her through the coach doorway. Both she and Francis were sitting quite undisturbed. The jar had, in fact, not been sudden to them. As Hal knew, they had expected the breakdown. But his dissembling must be complete.
"Here's delay!" put in Captain Rumney, most sympathetically vexed.
"Yes," said Marryott, very dismally, as if bereft of hope. His wisest course lay in holding the plotters passive by making them think they had already accomplished enough. If Mistress Hazlehurst supposed that sufficient delay was now obtained, she would not further instigate Rumney. And without instigation Rumney was not likely to invite open warfare at a place only two miles from Keighley. In fact, he would not, of his own initiative, have chosen a spot so near a town, for causing the breakdown, which might result in tumult. He would have waited for a more solitary neighborhood. He was of no mind for needlessly chancing any kind of violent contact with the authorities. Mistress Hazlehurst, not divining his feelings on this point, had created the opportunity at this spot, and he had taken the risk. But he was well content that the supposed Sir Valentine accused him not. In roads more remote, accusation might be positively welcome; but not in close vicinity to a centre of law and order.
With a kind of vague, general sense of what Captain Rumney's mental attitude must be, Marryott felt that he need fear no interruption to the plan his mind now formed, in a moment's time, for an early resumption of the flight. But he did not communicate this plan to any but Anthony, who alone was necessary to its inauguration. Even Bottle was kept in the dark, in order that Rumney might not find, in being excepted from a council of leaders, a pretext for subsequent complaint.
As for his instructions to the Puritan, Hal gave them very quickly, in whispers, leaning down from his saddle to approach more nearly the other's ear.
Anthony, having listened without speech or sign, remounted his horse, rode to the house at which the breakfast had been obtained, and made a few brief inquiries of the man who came to the door.
The result of his questions was evidently not satisfactory; for he rode from the door, shaking his head in the negative to Master Marryott; and forthwith cantered off through the falling snow, toward Keighley.
Bottle, who had sat his horse in silent observation of these movements, as had Rumney also, now glanced at Hal as if to question the propriety of sending the Puritan away.
"Fear not," said Hal, reassuringly. "If he see thy friend Barnet ere he find what he seeks, he will drop all and come back a-flying. And then we shall meet Barnet, or dodge him, in what manner we must!"
It has been told that Marryott was always prepared, as a last resource, to use his forces in resistance to the pursuivant. A close meeting was to be avoided to the utmost, however; not only for its uncertainty of issue to the immediate participants, but for its likelihood of informing Barnet that the pursued man was not Sir Valentine. In the event of that disclosure, Hal saw safety for his mission in one desperate course; that was, to kill or disable the pursuivant and all his men. But such a feat of arms was barely within possibility, a fact which made Master Hal extremely unwilling that matters should come to an encounter. Therefore he groaned and fretted inwardly during the minutes of inaction that followed Anthony's departure. He sought relief from thoughts of a possible combat with his pursuers, in following out his plan for his forward movement; and saw with joy that the very method he had chosen for going on with his prisoner was the better adapted to his bearing her safely off from Rumney in case of a conflict with that gentleman.
"Have your men take their horses from the coach. Captain Rumney," Hal had said very soon after Anthony had departed. The words were spoken lightly, not as if they accorded with a plan, but as if they indeed had no other inspiration than was shown when Hal added, "'Tis no use now keeping them hitched to this moveless heap of lumber."
Prompt obedience had been given to an order so suggestive of greater delay. And now the robbers idly sat their horses, jesting, railing at one another, grumbling, and some of them wondering in dull discontent whither in the fiend's name they were bound. Anne and her Page_kept their places in the derelict vehicle, withholding their thoughts. Bottle and Rumney rode up and down, saying little. They were old soldiers, and used to waiting. Moreover, in the days of slow transit, patience was a habit, especially with those who travelled.
At last Anthony's figure reappeared, rising and falling in the whirling snow as his movements obeyed those of his horse. His manner showed that he did not bear any tidings of Barnet. He brought with him an old pillion and a collection of battered hunting-horns, the former behind his saddle, the latter all slung upon a single cord. It was to procure these things that he had gone back to Keighley, where there were saddlers, innkeepers, hostlers, smiths, and others from whom such articles were to be had. Hal's companions looked with curiosity at these acquisitions.
Marryott now ordered both Anthony and Kit to dismount. He then had the horse formerly ridden by Francis led back to the coach doorway. Here he caused Bottle to hold the animal, and Anthony to adjust the pillion behind the saddle thereon.
"Now, mistress," said Hal, when this was done, "pray let me aid you to the pillion."
From her seat in the coach she did not move, nor made she the smallest answer. She merely cast a look at Captain Rumney.
Hal saw the need of swift action; delay would give her mute appeal to the robber time to take effect. Summary proceedings would bewilder him.
"Tom Cobble, hold my horse," he said, and was afoot in an instant. In another, he was inside the coach, raising Mistress Hazlehurst bodily from her seat, and conveying her out of the doorway to the pillion, which was not too high or far to permit his placing her upon it. Taken quite by surprise, she found herself on horseback ere she thought to brace herself for physical resistance.
"The cord, Anthony," called Hal. The Puritan threw it to him, having already unfastened it from the hunting-horns. Before Mistress Hazlehurst had time to think of sliding from the pillion to the ground. Hal had her waist twice encircled by the cord, of which he retained both ends. He then, from the coach doorway, mounted the saddle in front of her, brought the rope's ends together before him, joined them in a knot, and let Kit Bottle lead the horse a few paces forward so that his prisoner might not impede matters by seizing hold of the coach.
"And now the boy, Anthony. Carry him on your saddle-bow," said Marryott. The Puritan, reaching into the coach with both arms, laid hold of the page, and placed him on the saddle-bow; then, at a gesture, mounted behind him.
"Take one of the horns, Kit," was Hal's next command. "Give one to me, one to Anthony, one to Captain Rumney, and the other to Tom Cobble. John Hatch, lead the spare horse. And now all to your saddles. Kit, ride at the head. Anthony, you shall go at my right hand; Tom Cobble, at my left. Captain Rumney shall choose his place. And heed this, all of you: When I sound this horn, all ye that have like instruments, blow your loudest; the rest, halloo your lustiest; and every mother's son set his horse a-galloping till I call halt, taking heed to keep together. And now, forward!"
A minute later, the cavalcade was moving through the downcoming flakes, leaving the wrecked coach to bury itself in the snow.
Mistress Hazlehurst could not but see her captor's reason for the order of which a blast from his horn was to be the signal. Now that she was no longer concealed in the coach, it would be easier—the temptation would be greater—for her to make an outcry when passing habitations. The noise of the horns and of the hallooing would drown the words she might utter, and the galloping would rob her gesticulations of their intended effect. The conduct of the whole party would strike beholders as the sportive ebullition of a company of merry blades bent on astonishing the natives; and any cries or motions she might make would seem, in the flash of time while they might be witnessed, but of a piece with the behavior of her boisterous companions. There were roysterers of the gentler sex in those days,—witness Mary Frith, otherwise "Moll Cutpurse," who was indeed a very devil of a fellow.[28] Such roaring women were not of Mistress Hazlehurst's quality; but who would have time to discern her quality in the brief while of the company's mad transit through such small towns as lay before them?
It was less clear to her why her enemy should have placed her on the same horse with himself, when he might have bound her upon another, of which he could have retained hold of the bridle. But the case was thus: Though a possible contest with Rumney or Barnet might result in Hal's own personal escape, such a contest might, were she on another horse, enable her to free herself, and either make disclosures fatal to Hal's mission, or fall prisoner to the robber. But, she being on his horse, and unable to act independently of him, Hal's escape would leave her still his captive. That escape he must, then, contrive to make. He thus simplified his course in the event of an encounter; twined two threads into one; united two separate lines of possible befalling
"THE BRAZEN NOTES CLOVE THE AIR."
—his line and hers—so that they might be determined by a single, concentrated exertion of his own prowess.
Should matters so shape that her life be endangered by her position, Hal might, at the last moment, sever with his dagger the cord that bound her to him. She, being now deprived of weapons, could not do this.
As for Francis, stealthy and resolute as recent occurrences had shown him to be, there was nothing to fear from him while he bestrode the saddle-bow of Anthony Underhill.
It was eight o'clock when they started from the abandoned coach. A little after nine they passed through Skipton. The town was half invisible through the falling snow, which, as it came, was the sport of the same wind that made casements rattle and weather-cocks creak, and street-folk muffle themselves and pay small heed to passing riders.
To test his device and his men, Master Marryott, when half way through the town, sounded his horn and gave his horse the spur. The response, from all but Captain Rumney, was instant and hearty. The brazen notes clove the air, the men emitted a score of unearthly yells, the horses dashed forward; and the clamor, which caused the few snow-blinded outdoor folk to stare blinkingly, might well have awakened the ghosts of the ancient castle of the Cliffords. But neither ghosts nor townspeople stayed the turbulent strangers.
When Hal ordered a cessation, outside the town, he found that the men were in the better humor for the little outlet to their pent-up deviltry; all with the exception of Rumney, who had galloped with the rest, but in silence.
Rumney had indeed been moody since the abandonment of the coach. He had kept his place behind Marryott, in full range of the eyes of the lady on the pillion, who, as she sat sidewise, could look back at him with ease. Her glances, eloquent of a kind of surprise at his inaction, gave him an ill opinion of himself which he soon burned to revenge upon some one. And his feelings were not sweetened by his men's good humor over an incident from which he had excluded himself.
Of the roads from Skipton, Marryott chose that which he thought would take him soonest into the North Riding. The cavalcade had gone perhaps four miles upon this road, when, suddenly, Captain Rumney called out:
"Halt, lads, and close in upon this quarry!"
His men checked their horses, some with surprise, some as if the order might have been expected. They drew their blades, too,—blades of every variety,—and turned their horses about.
Captain Bottle instantly urged his steed back toward Hal, charging through the confusion of plunging horses in true cavalry fashion. Marryott himself wheeled half around to face Rumney. Anthony Underhill, with Francis on his saddle-bow, grimly menaced the robbers who had turned.
"What means this, Captain Rumney?" said Hal, quietly. Every sword in the company was now unsheathed.
"It means that I cry, stand and deliver!" replied the robber, finding all needful confidence and courage in the very utterance of the habitual challenge. He felt himself now in his own rôle, and feared nothing.
"Is it not foolish," answered Marryott, without raising his voice, "to risk your skin thus, for the sake of money that would be yours to-morrow in payment of service?"
"To the devil with your money,—though I'll have that, too, ere all's done! First deliver me the lady!"
"I am much more like to deliver you to the flames below!" replied Hal.
"Say you so! Upon him, boys!" cried Rumney, raising a pistol, which he had furtively got ready to fire.
Two things occurred at the same moment: Anthony Underhill got his sword engaged with that of the nearest robber who had moved to obey Rumney's order; and Master Marryott struck Rumney's pistol aside with his rapier, so that it discharged itself harmlessly into the falling snow.
Hal's next movement was to turn Rumney's sword-point with his dagger, which he held in the same hand with his rein. Behind him, Mistress Hazlehurst clung to her pillion, in a state of mind that may be imagined. In front of Anthony Underhill. Francis, the page, made himself small, to avoid a possible wild thrust from the fellow that contested with the Puritan.
By this time Kit Bottle had reached Anthony's side.
"What, ye jolly bawcocks!" he cried to the robbers, his sword-point raised aloft, as if he awaited the result of his words ere choosing a victim for it. "Will ye follow this cheap rascal Rumney 'gainst gentlemen? He'll prove traitor to you all, an ye trust him long enough; as he did to me in the Low Countries! Mr. Edward Moreton, and honest John Hatch, and good Oliver Bunch, I call on you stand by true men!"
"And Tom Cobble!" shouted Hal, without looking back from his combat with Rumney, which, although it was now one of rapiers, they continued to wage on horseback. "You're my man, I wot! A raw rustical rogue like this, is not fit for London lads to follow!"
"What say ye, mates?" cried Tom Cobble. "I am for the gentleman!"
"And I!" quoth John Hatch, stoutly; Ned Moreton, airily; Oliver Bunch, timidly; and two or three others.
"A murrain on gentlemen!" roared a burly fellow, and a chorus of approving oaths and curses showed that a majority of Rumney's men remained faithful to their old leader.
"Good, my hearts!" cried their captain, his brow clearing of the cloud that had risen at the first defection. "There shall be the more pickings for you that are staunch! I'll kill every deserter!"
"Look to't you be not killed yourself!" quoth Master Marryott, leaning forward to keep the area of steel-play far from Mistress Hazelhurst.
Rumney had exchanged his emptied pistol for a dagger, and he imitated Hal in using it with the hand that held his rein. In rapier-and-dagger fights, the long weapon was used for thrusting, the short one for parrying. Such contests were not for horseback. When mounted enemies met, so armed, they would ordinarily dismount and fight afoot. But Marryott was determined not to separate himself from his prisoner, and Rumney chose to remain in readiness for pursuit in case his antagonist should resort to flight.
So this unique duel went on,—a single combat with rapier and dagger, on horseback, one of the contestants sharing his horse with a lady on a pillion behind him! The combat remained single because Rumney's men had all they could do in defending themselves against the vigorous attack of Kit Bottle. Anthony Underhill, and the deserters from their own band.
These deserters, knowing that the defeat of the side they had taken would leave them at the mercy of the Rumney party, fought with that fury which comes of having no alternative but victory or death. There was not an idle or a shirking sword to be found on either side. Each man chose his particular antagonist, and when one combatant had worsted his opponent he found another or went to the aid of a comrade. In the narrow roadway, in blinding flakes, and with mingled cries of pain, rage, and elation, these riders plied their weapons one against another, until blood dripped in many places on the fallen snow that was tramped by the rearing horses.
The strange miniature battle, fought in a place out of sight of human habitation, and with no witnesses but the two prisoners so dangerously placed for viewing it, lasted for ten minutes. Then Master Marryott, whose adroitness, sureness, and swiftness had begun to appall and confuse Rumney, ran his rapier through the latter's sword-arm.
With a loud exclamation, the robber dropped the arm to his side, and backed his horse out of reach with his left hand.
But Hal, with a fierce cry "Talk you of killing?" spurred his horse forward as if to finish with the rascal. This was a pretence, but it worked its purpose.
"Quarter," whimpered the robber captain, pale with fear.
"Then call off your hounds!" replied Hal, hotly, checking his horse.
"I will," answered the trembling Rumney, quickly. "Lads, a truce! Put up your swords, curse you!"
His men were not sorry to get this order, nor their opponents to hear it given. The fight had gone too evenly to please either side, and wounds—some of them perhaps destined to prove fatal—had been nearly equally distributed. Hal's adherents ceased fighting when their foes did, Kit Bottle being the last, and probably the only reluctant one, to desist.
"And now you will turn back, Master Rumney," said Marryott, in a hard, menacing tone, "and find another road to travel! Take with you the knaves that stood by you. The others, an they choose, shall remain my men, in my pay. Come, you rogues, march!"
Master Marryott backed to the side of the road, that Rumney's followers might pass. They did so, readily enough, those who were unhorsed being lifted to saddles by their comrades. Until the two parties were distinctly separated, and several paces were between them, every weapon and every eye on either side remained on the alert to meet treachery. All the deserters from Rumney stayed with Hal.
"'God bless you, Ancient Rumney,'" called out Kit Bottle, slightly altering a remembered speech from a favorite play, as the robber turned his horse's head toward Skipton. "'You scurvy, lousy knave. God bless you!'"
Rumney and his men rode for some distance without answer; Hal and his company, motionless, looking after them. Suddenly, when he was beyond easy overtaking, the robber leader turned in his saddle, and shouted back, vindictively:
"I scorn you, Kit Bottle! You are no better than an Irish footboy! And your master there is a woman-stealing dog, that I'll be quits with yet. He's no gentleman, neither, but a scurvy fencing-master in false feathers!"
"Shall I give chase and make him eat his words?" asked Kit of Master Marryott.
"Nay, the cur that whines for mercy, and receives it, and then snarls back at a safe distance, is too foul for thy hands, Kit! Let those fellows on the ground be put on horses and supported till we find a safe place for them. I'll not abandon any that stood by me. And then, onward! Madam, I trust you were not incommoded. Your page, I see, is safe."
Mistress Hazlehurst deigned no answer. Her feelings were wrapped in a cloak of outward composure.
The wounded men were soon made safe upon horses, and the northward journey was again in progress.
"I thank heaven we are rid of Captain Rumney!" said Hal to Kit Bottle, who now rode beside him. Anthony having taken the lead.
"I would thank heaven more heartily, an I were sure we were rid of him!" growled Kit, blinking at the snowflakes.