VI
HOW WILL ALL END?
When they had all gone and the hall was quiet, Thoroughgood came slowly down with a puzzled frown on his honest, weather-beaten face to where Halfman humped over his map.
“Where’s the good of drilling clowns and cooks?” he asked, surlily. He talked like one thoroughly weary, but his mood of weariness seemed to melt before the sunshine of Halfman’s smile as he lifted his head from the map.
“Where’s the harm?” he countered. “’Twas my lady’s idea to keep their spirits up, and, by God! it was a good thought. She knows how it heartens folk to play a great part in a great business: keeps them from feeling the fingers of famine in their inwards, keeps them from whining, repining, declining, what you will. But I own I did not count on the presence of Gammer Cook in the by-play.”
“I could not see why she should be kept out of the mummery,” Thoroughgood responded, “if she had a mind for the masking.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Halfman answered, meditatively. “My lady’s example would make a Hippolyta of any housemaid of them all.”
“I do not know what it would make of them,” Thoroughgood answered; “but I know this, that it matters very little now.”
Halfman swung round on his seat and stared at him curiously.