A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth

by Robert Neilson Stephens

Hal watched her into the entrance-hall of the inn. At the foot of the stairs leading to the upper floor, she stopped, handed a piece of money to the attendant, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The fellow glanced toward the inn porch in which Hal was standing, and nodded obedience. Hal inferred that she was engaging to be notified instantly in case of his departure. A moment later Hal beckoned Anthony to follow, and went, under the guidance of the landlady herself, up to his own room.

As he turned from the stair-head into the upper passage, he saw a door close, which he divined to be that of his fair enemy. A moment later an inn servant appeared with a bench, and placed it outside this door. On reaching his own room, in the same passage, Hal noticed that this bench, on which Francis was to rest, stood in view of his own door, and also—by way of the stairs—of the entrance-hall below. He smiled at the precautions taken by the foe.

Examining his room, he saw that it had the required window overlooking the front inn yard and the road beyond. Immediately beneath this window was the sloping roof of the inn porch. Having opened the casement, and moved the bed's head near it, Hal turned to the dinner that a servant was placing on a small trestle-table, for which there was ample free space in the chamber. The English inns of those days were indeed commodious, and those in the country towns were better than those in London. Hosts took pride in their tapestry, furniture, bedding, plate, and glasses. Some of the inns in the greater towns and roads had room for three hundred guests with their horses and servants. Noblemen travelled with great retinues, and carried furniture with them. It was a golden age of inns,—though, to be sure, the servants were in many cases in league with highway robbers, to whom they gave information of the wealth, destinations, routes, and times of setting forth of well-furnished guests. The inn at which Hal now refreshed himself, in Oakham, was not of the large or celebrated ones. He had his own reasons for resorting to small and obscure hostelries. Yet he found the dinner good, the ale of the best, and, after that, the bed extremely comfortable, even though he lay in his clothes, with his hand on his sword-hilt.

He had flung himself down, immediately after dinner, not waiting for the platters and cups to be taken away. Anthony, who had been as a table-fellow sour and monosyllabic, but by no means abstemious, for all his Puritanism, was as prompt as Hal to avail himself of the comfort of the bed. His appreciation was soon evinced by a loud snoring, whose sturdy nasality seemed of a piece with his canting, rebuking manner of speech when he allowed himself to be lured into conversation. There was in his snore a rhythmic wrestling and protesting, as of Jacob with the angel, or a preacher against Satan, that befitted well his righteous non-conformity. From this thought—for which he wondered that he could find place when his situation provided so much other matter for meditation—Hal's mind lapsed into the incoherent visions of slumber, and soon deep sleep was upon him.

Hal had arranged that Kit Bottle should return to the inn and call him, after four hours, in the event of no appearance of the pursuit. When Hal awoke with a start, therefore, and yet heard no such hallooing as Anthony had given at Catworth, he supposed that Kit must have summoned him by a less alarming cry. His head shot out of the window, but he beheld no Kit. Turning to Anthony, he saw that the Puritan had just opened his eyes.

"Didst hear anything?" queried Hal.

"Not sith I awoke," was the answer. "Yet meseems in my sleep there was a loud grating sound and a terrific crash."

"In our dreams we multiply the sounds that touch our ears," said Hal. "It must have been a sound of omen, to have waked us both. So let us think of a small grating sound—"

At that instant his eyes alighted on the door. He would have sworn a key had been in that door, though he had not locked it before sleeping. He had noticed the key for its great size and rustiness. But no key was there now, at least on the inside. Hal strode from the bed, and tried the door. It was locked.

"How now?" quoth he. "Some one has robbed us of our key, and used it on the wrong side of the door!"