"Play-acting!" muttered Anthony, with a dark frown, followed by an upturning of the eyes.
"Thou'lt pass, my son!" said the physician, his eyes alight with approval and new-found hope. "Truly, I think he will, Sir Valentine,—with a touch of the scissors to shape his beard more like!" And he took up from the table a pair of scissors, doubtless used in cutting bandages for the wounded man, and striding toward Master Marryott, applied them with careful dexterity. "Behold," said he, when he had finished. "Thou'lt surely fool them in the lanthorn's light and the haste. By close work thou mightst truly lead them off in the night, but in daylight the falseness of thy beard may easily be seen, for the strings 'tis tied withal."
"But the officers shall not see my face after the starting. I'll not stay near enough to them for that. 'Tis by word of innkeepers and townspeople and country-folk, of my passage through the country, that I shall be traced. And mark: save to officers that keep note of Catholics, Sir Valentine is scarce known ten miles hence, so much hath he lived abroad. And I'm not known out of London and Oxfordshire. So who's to set the pursuers right?"
"But what then?" said the physician. "Those same innkeepers and such can but report the passage of a man with a false beard, at best. More like, they will cause thy detention as a questionable person, till the council's men come up to thee. Either way, the pursuivant will see the trick, and speed hotfoot back to this house."
"Why, look you," said Hal, "early in the morning I will hastily enter some inn, my face muffled as for cold. There, in a private chamber, I will take off the beard, and come forth as if I had but shaved. And so report will remain of me, that I came bearded and departed shaven; and the men in pursuit will take this very shaving as a means of disguise. They'll be the more convinced I'm the man."
"Ay, but there you risk their losing trace of you; for the absence of the beard will show your youth, and make you at odds with their description of you."
"Why, the loss of a beard will sometimes give an elder man a look of youth. And the same companion shall ride with me,—he that now keeps watch without. By the description of him as my attendant, 'twill be known I am the gentleman that rode from Fleetwood house. And to make my trace the more certain, let a second accompany me,—one of Sir Valentine's servants that live here constantly and are better known than their master is. And he shall also guide me on the roads hereabouts, in my first dash from the gates; for, look you, there will be fleet riding for an hour or two!"
"Thou hearest, Sir Valentine," said the physician, turning to the wounded gentleman.
"Ay," replied the knight, "and being weak of breath, have waited for a breach to put my word in. 'Tis all madness, this ye talk of! E'en were't possible. I should let no man risk life for me as this young gentleman offereth. Why, lad, they'd catch thee, of a surety—"
"I make question of that, Sir Valentine," quoth Hal.