He did not notice, in the wild humor which had seized him, who Martin's companion was, though probably at another time it would have struck him that there was no one in the house quite so tall. He sped on with scarcely a glance, and in a moment was under the gateway, where Sir Anthony was soundly rating everybody, and particularly the porter, who with his key in the door found or affected to find the task of turning it a difficult one. As the steward came up, however, the big doors at some sign from him creaked on their hinges, and the knight, his staff in his hand, and the servants clustering behind him with lanterns, walked forward a pace or two to the end of the bridge, bearing himself with some dignity.
"Who disturbs us at this hour?" he cried, peering across the moat, and signing to Baldwin to hold up his large lantern, since the others, uncertain of their reception, had put out their torches. By its light he and those behind him could make out a group of half a dozen figures a score of yards away, while in support of these there appeared a bowshot off, and still in the open ground, a clump of, it might be, a hundred men. Beyond all lay the dark line of trees, above which the moon, new-risen, was sailing through a watery wrack of clouds. "Who are ye?" the knight repeated.
"Are you Sir Anthony Cludde?" came the answer.
"I am."
"Then in the Queen's name, Sir Anthony," the leader of the troop cried solemnly, "I call on you to surrender. I hold a warrant for your arrest, and also for the arrest of James Carey, a priest, and Baldwin Moor, who, I am told, is your steward. I am backed by forces which it will be vain to resist."
"Are you Sir Philip Clopton?" the knight asked. For at that distance and in that light it was impossible to be sure.
"I am," the sheriff answered earnestly. "And, as a friend, I beg you, Sir Anthony, to avoid useless bloodshed and further cause for offense. Sir Thomas Greville, the governor of Warwick Castle, and Colonel Bridgewater are with me. I implore you, my friend, to surrender, and I will do you what good offices I may."
The knight, as we know, had made up his mind. And yet for a second he hesitated. There were stern, grim faces round him, changed by the stress of the moment into the semblance of dark Baldwin's; the faces of men, who though they numbered but a dozen were his men, bound to him by every tie of instinct, and breeding, and custom. And he had been a soldier, and knew the fierce joy of a desperate struggle against odds. Might it not be better after all?
But then he remembered his womenkind; and after all, why endanger these faithful men? He raised his voice and cried clearly, "I accept your good offices, Sir Philip, and I take your advice. I will have the drawbridge lowered, only I beg you will keep your men well in hand, and do my poor house as little damage as may be."
Giving Baldwin the order, and bidding him as soon as it was performed come to him, the knight walked steadily back into the courtyard and took his stand there. He dispatched the women and some of the servants to lay out a meal in the hall. But it was noticeable that the men went reluctantly, and that all who could find any excuse to do so lingered round Sir Anthony as if they could not bear to abandon him; as if, even at the last moment, they had some vague notion of protecting their master at all hazards. A score of lanterns shed a gloomy, uncertain light--only in places reinforced by the glow, from the hall windows--upon the group. Seldom had a Coton moon peeped over the gables at a scene stranger than that which met the sheriff's eyes, as with his two backers he passed under the gateway.