But was he destined to succeed? Was Roger Barnet still upon his track? Or was he fleeing from nothing, leaving a track for nobody to follow? Well, he must trust to those at Fleetwood house to keep Sir Valentine's actual whereabouts from discovery, and to Barnet's skill in picking up the trace that a fugitive must leave, willy-nilly. But what if fate, so fond of playing tricks on mortals, should conceive the whim of covering up the track of this one fugitive who desired his track to be seen? Hal cast away this thought. He must proceed, confidently, though in blindness as to what was doing behind him. At present, silence was there; no sound of far-off horse-hoofs. But this might be attributed to Barnet's interruption by Anne's party; to measures for procuring fresh horses, and to the necessary delivery of the letters of which the queen had told him. And so, fleeing from cold darkness and the unknown into cold darkness and the unknown, deep in his thoughts, and trusting to his star. Master Marryott rode on through Baldock and toward Biggleswade. Kit Bottle presently called his attention to their having passed out of Hertfordshire into Bedfordshire.
The captain had been hard put to it for a fellow talker. His remarks to Hal had elicited only absent monosyllables or silence. At last, with a gulp as of choking down an antipathy, he had ridden forward to Anthony and tried conversation with that person. Master Underhill listened as one swallows by compulsion a disagreeable dose, and gave brief, surly answers. Kit touched with perfect freedom upon the other's most private concerns, not deeming that a despised dissenter had a right to the ordinary immunities.
"Marry, I know not which astoundeth me the more," said the soldier; "that a papist should keep a Puritan in's household, or that the Puritan should serve the papist!"
Anthony was for a moment silent, as if to ignore the impudent speech; but then, in a manner of resignation, as if confession and apology were part of his proper punishment, he said, with a lofty kind of humility:
"The case no more astoundeth you than it reproacheth me. It biteth my conscience day and night, and hath done so this many a year. Daily I resolve me to quit the service of them that cherish the gauds and idolatries of papistry. But the flesh is weak; I was born in Sir Valentine's household, and I could not find strength to wrench me from it."
"Ay," said Kit, "no doubt it hath been in its way a fat stewardship, though the estate be decreased. The master being so oft abroad, and all left to your hands, I'll warrant there have been plump takings, for balm to the bites o' conscience."
"I perceive you are a flippant railer; but you touch me not. What should they of no religion understand of the bites of conscience?"
"No religion! Go to, man! Though I be a soldier, and of a free life, look you, I've practised more religions than your ignorance wots of; and every one of them better than your scurvy, hang-dog, vinegar-faced non conformity! Nay, I have been Puritan, too, when it served my turn, in the days when I was of Walsingham's men. He had precisian leanings, and so had the clerk o' the council. Mr. Beal. But you are an ingrate, to fatten on a good service, yet call it a reproach!"
"Fatten!" echoed the Puritan, glancing down at his spare frame. "Mayhap it hath been a good service formerly, by comparison with its having this night made me partaker in a five days' lie, abettor of a piece of play-acting, and associate of a scurrilous soldier!"
With which Anthony Underhill quickened his horse so as to move from the captain's side; whereupon Kit, too amazed for timely outward resentment, lapsed into silent meditation.