"And yet this sister must have loved him. Women are not commonly so active toward punishing a brother's slayer," insisted Hal.
"Why," replied Anthony, "methinks this woman is a hothead that must needs do with her own hands what, if she were another woman, she would only wish done. 'Tis a pride of family that moveth her to look to the avenging of her brother's death. A blow at him she conceiveth to be a blow at herself, the two being of same name and blood. This sister and brother have ever been more quick, one to resent an affront against the other from a third person, than they have been slow to affront each other. I am not wont to speak in the language of the lost, or to apply the name of the arch-enemy to them that bear God's image; but, indeed, as far as a headstrong will and violent ways are diabolical, yon profane man spoke aptly when he named Mistress Anne a devil of a woman!"
"All's one for that," said Hal, curtly. "But, certes, as far as a matchless face and a voice of music are angelical, I speak as aptly when I name this Mistress Anne an angel of a woman! It went against me to leave her in the road thus, in a huddle of bleeding servants and runaway horses."
"Tis a huddle that will block the way for Roger Barnet a while," put in Captain Bottle.
"Doubtless he and his men have ridden up to her by now," replied Marryott. "I'd fain see what is occurring betwixt them." Then lapsing into silence. Hal and his two attendants rode on, passing through slumbering Stevenage, and continuing uninterruptedly northward.
Barnet's party had indeed come up to Mistress Hazlehurst's, and the scene now occurring between them was one destined to have a strange conclusion.
Anne's followers,—raw serving men without the skill or decision to have used rightly their numerical superiority over the three fugitives,—all were more or less hurt, except two,—the slight one who had personally shielded her, and the lantern-bearer, who had been taken out of the fray by the intractability of his horse. Not only was her escort useless for any immediate pursuit of the supposed Sir Valentine, but the condition of its members required of her, as their mistress and leader, an instant looking to. The necessity of this forbade her own mad impulse to ride unaided after the man who had escaped her, and whom she was the more passionately enraged against because of his victory over her and of his treatment of her servants. Nothing could have been more vexatious than the situation into which she had been brought; and she was bitterly chafing at her defeat, while forcing herself to consider steps for the proper care of her injured servants, when Barnet's troop came clattering up the road.
Mistress Hazlehurst's horses, except the runaway, had now been got under command; some of her men, merely bruised in body or head, stood holding them; others, worse hurt, lay groaning at the roadside, whither she had ordered their comrades to drag them. Anne herself sat her horse in the middle of the road, the little fellow, still mounted, at her left hand. Such was the group that caused Barnet and his men to pull up their horses to an abrupt halt. Peering forward, with eyes now habituated to the darkness, the royal pursuivant swiftly inspected the figures before him, perceived that Sir Valentine and his two attendants were not of them, wondered what a woman was doing at the head of such a party, dismissed that question as none of his business, and called out:
"Madam, a gentleman hath passed you, with two men. Did he keep the road to Stevenage, or turn out yonder?"
"Sir Valentine Fleetwood, mean you?" asked Anne, with sudden eagerness.