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

by Robert Neilson Stephens

Night fell while the travellers were toilsomely penetrating further into the West Riding of Yorkshire. When at last Hal gave the word to halt, they found themselves before a rude inn with numerous mean outbuildings, on a hill about six miles beyond Rotherham.

Hal had now to provide, because of new conditions, somewhat otherwise than he had done at his previous stopping-places. Anne and Francis were to be closely guarded, a repressive hand held ready to check the least hostile act or communication. Fresh horses could not be obtained in number equal to the company. Ere he had ordered the halt, Master Marryott had formed his plans.

At first it seemed that he might not unopposedly have his way with the frowsy-headed landlord who appeared in the doorway's light in response to his summons. But when the blinking host became aware of the numerousness of the company, and when Captain Rumney rode forward into the light, he instantly grew hospitable. Evidently the captain and the innkeeper were old acquaintances, if not occasional partners in trade. So Hal arranged a barter for what fresh horses were at the fellow's command; took lodgings for the night in the several outhouses, caused open fires to be made on the earthen floors therein, and ordered food and drink. He had the coach drawn into shelter, near one of the fires, and bedding placed in it, with other comforts from the inn.

He then informed Anne that she was to remain in her prison overnight; and he assigned to Francis a sleeping-place on a pile of straw, within sword reach of where he himself intended to guard the curtained opening of the coach. Anthony, on one of the fresh horses, should keep the usual watch for Barnet's party. Bottle, who had watched at Scardiff, was to sleep in the stable-loft, as was also Rumney, whose men were to occupy different outbuildings. No one was to remove his clothes, and, in case of alarm, all were to unite in hitching the horses, and to resume the flight.

The horses themselves were placed in stalls, but in as forward a state of readiness as was compatible with their easy resting. It was made clear that, should any of these movements be interrupted or followed by attack from a pursuing party, all the resistance necessary was to be offered.

The supper ordered was brought on wooden platters, and eaten in the light of the fires. Hal, as before, served Anne through the coach doorway, and she accepted the cakes and ale with neither reluctance nor thanks. But under her passiveness. Hal saw no abandonment of her purpose. He saw, rather, a design to gather clearness of mind and strength of body, for the invention and execution of some plan not only possible to her restraint, but likely to be more effectual than any she had tried when free.

When the company had supped, and the robbers could be heard snoring in the adjacent sheds, and Francis lay in the troubled sleep of excessive fatigue, and the regular breathing of Anne herself was audible through the coach curtain; when, in fine, every member of his strange caravan slept, save Anthony watching at the hill's southeastern brow, Master Marryott sat upon a log, and gazed into the sputtering fire on the ground, and mused. He marvelled to think how many and diverse and cumbrous elements he had assembled to his hand, and undertaken to keep in motion, for what seemed so small a cause.

To herd with robbers; to lavish the queen's money; to deceive a woman—the object of his love—so that he brought upon himself her hate meant for another; to carry off this woman by force, and put her to the utmost fatigue and risk; to wear out the bodies, and imperil the necks, of himself and so many others,—was it worth all this merely to create a fair opportunity—not a certainty—of escape for a Frenchified English Catholic, whose life was of no consequence to the country? Hal laughed to think how unimportant and uninteresting was the man in whose behalf all these labors and discomforts were being undergone by so many people, some of whom were so much more useful and ornamental to the world.

And yet he knew that the business was worth the effort; worth all the toil and risk that he himself took, and that he imposed upon other people. It was worth all this, perhaps not that a life might be saved, but that a debt might be paid, a promise made good,—his debt of gratitude to Sir Valentine, his promise to the queen. It was worth any cost, that a gentleman should fulfil his obligations, however incurred. To an Englishman of that time, moreover, it was worth a world of trouble, merely to please the queen.

But what most and deepest moved Hal forward, and made turning back impossible, was the demand in him for success on its own account, the intolerableness of failure in any deed that he might lay upon himself. Manly souls daily strain great resources for small causes, or for no cause worth considering, for the reason that they cannot endure to fail in what they have, however thoughtlessly, undertaken. The man of mettle will not relinquish; he will die, but he will not let go. It is because the thing most necessary to him is his own applause; he will not forfeit that, though he must pay with his life to retain it. Once his hand is to the plow, though he find too late that the field is barren, he will furrow that field through, or he will drop in his tracks; what concerns him is, not the reason or the reward, but the mere fact of success or failure in the self-assigned work. Men show this in their sports; indeed, the game that heroes play with circumstance and destiny, for the mere sake of striving to win, is to them a sport of the keenest. "Maybe it was not worth doing, but I told myself I would do it, and I did it!" Hal fancied the deep elation that must attend those words, could he truly say them three days hence.