*CHAPTER IV*
*THE LAST LAUGH.*
Christopher, his shoulders very straight and his head somewhere up amongthe stars, had trotted quietly down to Ripley village. His own failingwas not jealousy, but an extreme, foolhardy belief that luck was withhim always, and that blue sky watched over every day's adventure. As hereached the top of the street, he was thinking less of Lady Ripley andhis errand than of Joan Grant, who had sat on a stile in thehome-country while he made love to her, and had bidden him climb high.
He was roused from his dream by a company of Roundhead soldiery thatblocked the way, twenty paces or so ahead. It did not occur to him--hiswits were country-reared as yet--that they need not know for which sidehe rode, or that he was the bearer of a message. Moreover, there wasadventure to his hand. He put spurs to his horse, lifted his pike, androde in among them. The big-hearted simplicity of his attack bewilderedthe enemy for a moment; then they closed round him, plucked him from thesaddle, and held him, a man gripping him on either side, while EbenezerDrinkwater, their leader, looked him up and down.
"So you're for the King?" said Drinkwater.
"I have that privilege."
"Ay, you've the look of it, with your easy laugh and your big air. Haveyou never heard of the Latter Judgment, and what happens to the proudfolk?"
"I've heard much of you canting cropheads," said Christopher suavely.This was not the adventure he had hoped to meet, but he accepted itblithely, as he would have met a stiff fence fronting him in the middleof a fox-hunt.
"You're carrying a message to Ripley Castle?"
"I am."
Drinkwater, a hard man, empty of imagination, could make nothing of thisyoungster who seemed to have no thought for his life. He ordered one ofhis men to search the prisoner. Boots and pockets, shirt and the innerlining of his coat were ransacked. And Christopher felt no humiliation,because laughter was bubbling at his heart.
"Well?" asked the prisoner.
Drinkwater, dour, persistent, believing what his arid experience hadtaught him--that each man had his price--found a rough sort ofdiplomacy. "You can go safe if you tell us where the message is."
"I never cared too much for safety," said Kit, with great cheeriness."Offer another bribe, good crophead."
Ebenezer, fond of food and good liquor, fell into the usual snare, andmeasured all men's appetites by his own. "You look starved and empty.A good supper, say, and a creaming mug of ale to top it?"
"I'll take that draught of beer. Supper I'm in no need of for an houror two."
Drinkwater laughed, without merriment, as he bade one of his men go tothe tavern and bring a measure of home-brewed. It was brought toChristopher, and the smell of it was good as he blew the froth away.
Between the cup and the drinking he halted. "Let us understand thebargain. I drink this ale--I'm thirsty, I admit--and in return I tellyou where I hide the message."
"That is the bargain," assented Drinkwater. "I always knew every man wasto be bought, but your price is the cheapest I've heard tell of."
Kit lingered over the draught. "It is good ale," he said. "Send foranother measure."
"Well, it's not in the bond, but you can have it. Now, youngster," wenton Drinkwater, after the second measure had been despatched, "where'sthat message of yours?"
"In my head, sir," said Kit, with a careless nod. "Safe behind woodenwalls, as my father put it when he bade me learn it all by rote."
"No jesting," snapped Drinkwater, nettled by a guarded laugh from one ofhis own men. "The bargain was that you told us the message."
"That I told you where it lay--no more, no less. I have told you, andpaid for that good ale of yours."
Drinkwater was no fool. He saw himself outwitted and wasted no regrets.After all, he had the better of the jest.
"Tie him by the legs and arms," he said dourly, "and set him on thebench here till we're ready to start. There are more ways than one ofsobering a King's man."
Christopher did not like the feel of the rope about his limbs, nor didhe relish the attentions of stray village-folk who came and jeered athim after his captors had gone in to supper. One can despise louts, butstill feel the wasp-sting of their gibes.
Into the middle of it all came two horsewomen; and to Kit, seeing thewell-known horses, it was as if a breath of Yoredale and the spring cameto him. He knew the old men, too, who guarded the horse-women, front andrear. Under his gladness went an uneasy feeling that yesterday's hardriding and hard lighting, or Drinkwater's ale, or both, had rendered himlight-headed. It was not possible that she could be here in Ripley.
Joan Grant was tired of the uneventful journey, tired of her maid Pansy,whose tongue ran like a brook. "This should be Ripley, at long-last,"she said fretfully. "Tell me, girl, am I grey-headed yet? It seems alifetime since the morning."
Pansy, looking through the right-hand window of the coach, saw atavern-front, its windows soft with candle-light. On the bench in frontof it, lit by the ruddy gloaming, was a man bound with ropes, a man whothrew gibe for gibe at a company of Ripley's cowards who baited him.
"He carries no knight's air just now," said Pansy, with a bubble oflaughter; "but it was not for naught I found that stirrup-iron at thegate this morning."
Joan Grant looked, and, seeing Kit there, friendless and courageous, shefelt a quickening of the wayward thing she called her heart. She gotdown from the carriage, and stepped to the bench that stood under theinn wall; then, seeing the welcome in Kit's eyes--a welcome near toadoration--she withdrew a little.
"So this comes of riding for the King?" she asked, with high disdain.
And something stirred in Christopher--a new fire, a rebellion againstthe glamour that had put his manhood into leading-strings.
"If this comes, or worse, I'm glad to ride for the King," he said.
"If I loosed your hands and bade you take a seat in my coach----"
"I should not take it; there is other work to do."
Joan, under the smart of the rebuff, was pleased with this man of hers.Something had happened to him since yesterday. He was no longer theuncouth boy, thinking he could have the moon by asking for it.
"You're rough and uncivil, sir."
"I am. These lambs of the Parliament are teaching me new manners."
She bowed carelessly, drew her skirts away from the litter of theroadway, and went perhaps ten paces toward her carriage. Then sheturned. "I can be of no service to you, then?" she asked coldly.
His face grew eager, but not with the eagerness that had pleased andaffronted her just now; and he tried to beckon her nearer, forgettingthat his hands were tied. She guessed his meaning, and came to his sideagain; and this time she began cutting at his bonds with a knifeborrowed from her coachman; but the villagers intervened, saying theydared not be party to the venture.
"Yes, you can be of service," he whispered, when the onlookers had givenback again, leaving them to what they fancied was a lovers'leave-taking. "Lady Ingilby lives close by--it will scarcely be out ofyour way to take a message to her."
"'Yes, you can be of service,' he whispered."]
"So little out of the way that we are bound for the Castle, my maid andI, at the end of a fatiguing journey. If this is civil war, I'd as liefhave peace. There were no adventures on the road."
Kit could not understand her gusty mood--for that matter, she could notunderstand herself--but he was not concerned with whimsies. Folk weredependent on him, and he was answerable for their safety. He recalledthat she was kin to the folk at Ripley Castle, and accepted thissurprising fortune.
"Listen, and remember," he said sharply. "These lambs may quit theirsupper any moment and disturb us. Tell Lady Ingilby that we caught amessenger on his way from Skipton. His letter was to the Roundheadshere in Ripley. 'That termagant, Lady Ingilby, is making her house ameeting-place for Cavaliers'--have you that by heart?"
"Oh, yes," assented Joan, laughing at h
erself because he was not thesuitor now, but the lord paramount, who must be obeyed. "Proceed,Captain Metcalf--or have they made you colonel since yesterday?Promotion comes so quickly in time of war."
"You can flout me later," said Christopher, with country stolidness.
He repeated the rest of the message, and made sure that she had it byheart. "My folk are up the moor," he finished. "They're waiting nearthe High Cross till they hear what Lady Ingilby asks of them."
Joan Grant again, for no reason that she understood, grew lenient withthis man's bluntness, his disregard of the glamour she had been ableonce to weave about him as a spider spins its threads.
"Your folk are as near as High Cross, and you ask no more of me?"
"What is there to ask, except that you get into your carriage and findLady Ingilby? My work's done, now that I have a messenger."
She looked him in the face. In all her life of coquetry and whims, MissGrant had never stood so close to the reality that is beauty. Shesmiled gravely, turned without a word, and got into her carriage.
"Pansy," she said, as they were covering the short journey to theCastle, "I have met a man to-day."
"Snares o' Belial, most of them," murmured Pansy.
"He was tied by ropes, and I think he was in pain, his face was so greyand drawn. It did not seem to matter. He had all his folk at call, andwould not summon them, except for Lady Ingilby's needs. He forgot hisown."
"Knighthood," said Pansy, in her practical, quiet voice. "He always hadthe way of it."
So Miss Grant boxed her on the ears for her pains. "Small use in that,girl, if he dies in the middle of the business."
She stopped the carriage, summoned old Ben Waddilove, who rode in frontto guard her journey. "Ben, do you know the High Cross on the moor?" sheasked.
"I should do, Miss Joan, seeing I was reared i' this country before Iwent to Nappa."
"Then ride for it. You'll find Squire Metcalf and his men there. Tellhim that his son is sitting on a bench at Ripley, tied hand and foot."
After the loiterers of the village had watched Miss Grant's carriage outof sight, they turned again to baiting Christopher, until this diversionwas interrupted by Drinkwater coming with his men from supper in thetavern. Whether the man's digestion was wrong, or his heart out ofplace, only a physician could have told; but it happened always that afull meal brought out his worst qualities.
"Tired of sitting on a bench, lad?" he asked, with what to him waspleasantry.
"No," said Kit, "I'm glad to have a bench under me, after the ridingI've done lately. A bench sits quiet--not like a lolopping horse thatshakes your bones at every stride."
"About this message that you carry in your head? Would a full mealbribe you?"
"The message has gone to Lady Ingilby, as it happens. There'sconsolation, Puritan, in having the last laugh."
For a moment it seemed that Drinkwater would strike him on the mouth,but he conquered that impulse.
"So the message was to Lady Ingilby?" he said. "I guessed as much."
Kit reddened. To salve his vanity, under the humiliation he wassuffering, he had blurted out a name that should have been kept secret.What would the old Squire say of such imprudence?
"You're a lad at the game o' war," went on Drinkwater. "The last laughis with us, I reckon. We shall keep a stricter watch than ever on theCastle."
Remembering the burden of the message, Kit was more keenly aware that hehad blundered. "Perhaps I lied," he suggested.
"Most men do, but not you, I fancy. You've a babe's sort of innocenceabout you. Now, listen to me. You can go free if you repeat thatmessage."
"I stay bound," said Kit impassively.
A butcher in the crowd pressed forward. "He sent it on by a slip ofladydom--a King Charles sort o' lass, every inch of her, all pricked outwith airs and graces. The lad seemed fair daft about her, judging byhis looks."
"Thanks, friend," said Drinkwater grimly. "See you, lad, you can gofree to kiss her at the gate to-night, if you'll tell us what LadyIngilby knows by now."
Kit was young to the pillory, young to his fine regard for Joan Grant.An intolerable pain took hold of him as he heard her name bandiedbetween Drinkwater and the rabble. "You lout," he said, and that wasall. But the quietness of his loathing pierced even Drinkwater's thickhide.
Joan meanwhile had got to the Castle and had been welcomed by her auntwith something near to effusiveness.
"I've been so lonely, child," Lady Ingilby explained. "If one doesn'thappen to care for one's husband, it is fitting he should go to thewars; but if one does--ah, if one cares!"
A little later Joan explained that she had met a mad neighbour of herssitting on a bench in front of the Ripley inn. The man had showed nocare at all for his own safety, but had been zealous that she shouldcarry a message for him.
Lady Ingilby's face grew harder as she listened to the message, butstill her unconquerable humour stayed with her. "So they know me as'that termagant.' Good! I'm making this house a training-school forCavaliers. I stay at home while my husband rides for the King; but I,too, am riding. Joan, the suspense would kill me if I had no work to do.Sometimes he sends word that he is hale and busy down in Oxfordshire,and always he calls me sweetheart once or twice in these ill-written,hasty letters. At my age, child, to be sweetheart to any man!"
Something of the spoiled days slipped away from Joan as she breathedthis ampler air. The aunt who had been a little cold, austere, inbygone years was showing her true self.
"What of your mad neighbour?" asked Lady Ingilby, repenting of hersofter mood. "You did not leave him on the bench, surely, tied hand andfoot? You cut the ropes?"
"The villagers would not allow it--and, indeed, why should I regret? Hewas rough with me--cold and uncivil."
"There, child! Never wave the red flag in your cheeks. Folk see it,like a beacon fire. You're in love with the madman. No denial, by yourleave. I'm old and you are young, and I know my world."
"He is uncouth and rude. I hate him, aunt."
"That proves it to the hilt. I'll send out a rescue-party. Men whohave no care for their own lives are precious these days."
"You have no need," said Miss Grant. "I forgave him for his roughness."
"Tut, child! Forgiveness won't untie his hands."
"But I sent word, too, to his kinsmen, who are near."
"So!" laughed Lady Ingilby. "How fierce your loathing burns, you babejust come from the nursery!"
On the moor guarded by the High Cross the Squire of Nappa was pacing lipand down, halting now and then to watch his kinsfolk as they sleptbeside their horses. He envied them their slumber, would have been gladto share it after the turmoil of the last two days, but, under allcasual temptation to lie down and sleep, he knew that he was glad to beawake--awake, with the free sky overhead and the knowledge that so manyMetcalfs needed him.
"We ought to do well for the King," was his constant thought. "If wefail, 'twill not be for lack of wakefulness on my part."
As dusk went down the hill, and on the edge of dark a big moon strodeabove the moor's rim, he heard the faint sound of hoofs. None but earssharpened by a country life could have caught the sound; but the Squirewas already handling his pike. As the rider drew nearer, his big horsescattering stones from the steep drift of shale, Metcalf gripped theshaft of his weapon and swung it gently to and fro.
The moon's light was clear now, and into the mellow gold of it thehorseman rode.
"Who goes there?" roared the Squire, lifting his pike.
It was a quavering voice that answered. "Be ye going to fight BenWaddilove? I'm old and home-weary, and we were lads together."
The Squire's laugh should have roused his company. "Why, Ben, I camenear to braining you! What brings you here so far from Nappa?"
"Oh, Miss Joan! She's full of delicate, queer whimsies. Told me, shedid, I had to ride up the moor, as if my knees were not raw already!Said li'le Christopher, your son, was sitting on a
bench in Ripley, tiedhand and foot by Roundhead folk. So he is. I saw him there myself."
Without pause or hesitation, the Squire turned to his sleeping kinsfolk.Some he shook out of slumber, and kicked others to attention. "We'refor Ripley, lads!" was all his explanation.
With astonishing speed they unpicketed their horses and got to saddle.The discipline of farm and field, out yonder at Nappa, had not gone fornaught. They knew this rough-tongued Squire who meant to be obeyed.
Ben Waddilove tried to keep pace with them as they skeltered down themoor, but gave it up at last. "Nay," he muttered, "I'm not so young as Iwas. I'll just be in at the death, a bit later on."
Drinkwater and his lambs were tiring of their prisoner, who would notspeak, would not budge or accept a price for liberty, when a trumpetcall rang down the village street.
"A Mecca for the King!" roared the Squire, his voice like a mountainburn in spate.
When all was done, and Kit's hands loosened, the lad knew his weaknessand the galling pains about his limbs. He lifted his head with the lastrally of his strength.
"Sir, where is Drinkwater?" he asked his father.
"Dead, my lad. He ran against my pike."
"That's a pity. I wanted you to--to tell him, sir, that I had the lastlaugh, after all."