The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel

by Justin H. McCarthy

  V

  A MONSTROUS REGIMENT

  In the great hall at Harby a motley fellowship were assembled. If astranger from a strange land, wafted thither on some winged Arabiancarpet or flying horse of ebony, could have beheld the place and thecompany, he would have been hard put to it to find any reasonableexplanation of what his eyes witnessed. In the middle of the hallsome five singular figures stood on line: two tall, powerful ladswith foolish faces, flagrant farm-hands; an old, bowed man with thesnow of many winters on his hair; an impish lad who might havewelcomed fourteen springs; and, finally, a rubicund, buxom woman withvery red cheeks, very blue eyes, very brown hair, whose personsuggested the kitchen a league off. Each of these persons handled apike, carrying it at an angle different from that of the others, andeach of them gazed with painfully attentive stare at the oaken tablenear the hearth upon which Hercules Halfman sat learnedly expoundingthe mysteries of the pike drill, while Thoroughgood stood betweenhim and the awkward squad to illustrate in his own person and withthe pike he carried the teachings of the instructor.

  "Order your pikes," Halfman commanded. "Advance your pikes. Shoulderyour pikes." Then, as these orders were obeyed deftly enough byThoroughgood and with bewildering variety by the others, hecontinued, "Trail your pikes," and then broke sharply off toexpostulate with one of the farm-hands.

  "Now, Timothy Garlinge, call you that trailing of a pike. Why, GammerSatchell carries herself more soldierly."

  Timothy Garlinge grinned loutishly at this rebuke, but the fat damewhom Halfman's flourish indicated seemed to dilate with satisfaction.

  "It were shame," she chuckled, "if a handy lass could not better alobbish lad."

  The impish lad grinned derision.

  "Ay," he commented; "but an old fool's best at her spits andgriddles."

  A most unmilitary titter rippled along the rank but broke upon therock of Mrs. Satchell's anger. It might have seemed to many that itwere impossible for the dame's cheeks to be any redder, but MistressSatchell's visage showed that nature could still work miracles. Withface a rich crimson from chin to forehead, she made to hurl herselfupon the leering, fleering mannikin, but was caught in theunbreakable restraint of neighbor Clupp's clasp.

  "You limb, I'll griddle you!" Mistress Satchell gasped, panting inthe embracing arms. Halfman played the peace-maker with a sour smile.

  "There, there, goody," he expostulated; "youth will have its yelp."

  He turned with something of a yawn to Thoroughgood.

  "Why a devil did you press gossip cook into the service?"

  Thoroughgood shook his head protestingly.

  "Nay, the virago volunteered," he explained, with a look that seemedto supplement speech in the suggestion that it were best to letMistress Satchell have her own way. This was evidently MistressSatchell's own view of the matter.

  "Truly," she exclaimed, "if my lady, being no more than a woman, isman enough to garrison her house against the Roundheads, she cannotdeny me, that am no less than a woman, the right to handle a pike."

  Halfman, eying the dame's assertive rotundities, thought that hewould be indeed a quarrelsome fellow who should deny her evidentfemininity.

  "You are a lovely logician," he approved. "Enough."

  Then resuming his sententious tone of military command, he took upthe task where he had left it off.

  "Trail your pikes."

  The order was this time obeyed by the company with somethingapproaching resemblance to the action of Thoroughgood, and Halfmanwent on.

  "Cheek your pikes."

  Out of the confused cluttering of weapons which ensued, TimothyGarlinge emerged tremulous.

  "Please, sir," he gurgled, "I've forgotten how to cheek my pike."

  Halfman mastered exasperation bravely, as, taking a pike from thehands of Thoroughgood, he strove to illuminate rusticity.

  "Use your pike thus, noddy," he lessoned, good-naturedly, wieldingthe weapon with the skill of a practised pikeman. But theillustration was as much lost upon Garlinge as the original command,and in his attempt to imitate it he whirled his arm so recklesslythat his companions scattered in dismay, and Halfman himself wasfain to move a step or two backward to avoid the yokel's meaninglesssweeps.

  "Have a care," he cried. "If you work so wild you will damage yourcompany."

  Mrs. Satchell, taking her post in the now restored line, shook herred fist at the delinquent.

  "He had best not damage me," she thundered, "or I'll damage him tosome purpose."

  "Silence in the ranks!" Halfman commanded, sharply. "Charge yourpikes," he ordered.

  This order was obeyed indifferently and tamely enough by all save theegregious Mrs. Satchell, who delivered so lusty a thrust with herweapon that Halfman was obliged to skip back briskly to avoidbringing his breast acquainted with her steel.

  "Nay, woman, warily!" he shouted, half laughing, half angry. "Playyour play more tamely. I am no rascally Roundhead."

  Mrs. Satchell grounded her weapon and wiped the sweat from hershining forehead with the back of her red hand. There was a deadlyearnest in her eyes, a deadly earnest in her speech.

  "I cry you mercy," she panted. "But I am a whole-hearted woman, andwhen you bid me charge I am all for charging."

  Halfman did his best to muffle amusement in a reproving frown. "Limityour zeal discreetly," he urged, and was again the drill sergeant.

  "Shoulder your pikes."

  The weapons followed the words with some show of decorum.

  "Comport your pikes."

  Again the evolution was carried out with some degree of accuracy.

  "Port your pikes."

  Here all followed the word of command fairly well with the exceptionof Garlinge's fellow-rustic, who simply strove to repeat the orderalready executed. Halfman turned upon him sharply.

  "Now, Clupp," he cried, "will you never learn the difference betweenport and comport?"

  Clupp, the fellow addressed, bashful at finding himself the object ofattention, swayed backward and forward with his pikestaff for apivot, laughing vacantly.

  "No, sir," he gaped, stupidly. Master Halfman's lip wrinkledmenacingly, and he reached his hand to his staff that lay upon thetable.

  "Indeed!" he said. "Then I must ask Master Crabtree Cudgel to lessonyou."

  He advanced threateningly towards the terrified fellow, but longbefore he could reach him Dame Satchell had interposed her generousbulk between officer and private, not, however, as was soon shown,from any desire to intercede for the culprit.

  "Leave him to me, sir," she entreated, vehemently. "If you love me,leave him to me."

  And, indeed, her angry eyes shone warranty that the offender wouldfare badly at her hands. Halfman waved her aside with a gesture ofimpatience.

  "Mistress Satchell," he protested, "you are a valiant woman, but arampant amazon."

  Dame Satchell's cheeks glowed a deeper crimson, and her variableanger raged from Clupp to Halfman.

  "Call me no names," she squalled, "though you do call yourselfcaptain, or I'll call you the son of a--"

  However Mistress Satchell intended to finish her objurgation it wasnot given to the company to learn, for Halfman tripped up her speechwith a nimble interruption.

  "The son of a pike, so please you," he suggested, with a smile thatsoftened the virago's heart. "There, we have toiled enough to-day andit tests our tempers. Dismiss."

  This command he addressed to the whole of his amazing company; toDame Satchell he gave a congee with a more than Spanish flourish: "Toyour pots and pans, valorous."

  Dame Satchell, mollified by his compliment, shrugged her fatshoulders. "'Tis little enough I have to put in them," she grumbled."Roast or boiled, boiled, fried, or larded, all's one, all's none.We'll be mumbling shoe-leather soon."

  She sighed heavily at the thought, and moved slowly towards the doorat the end of the hall beneath the gallery. Halfman, unheeding her,had turned to the table and was intently poring over the large mapthat lay there together with a loaded pistol. T
horoughgood gaveorders to the men.

  "Garlinge and Clupp, go scour the pikes. Tom Cropper, find somethingto keep you out of mischief. As for you, Gaffer Shard, you may restawhile."

  The old man shook his frosty head vigorously. "Nay, nay," he piped,"I need no rest. My old bones are loyal and cannot tire in a goodcause. God save the King."

  He gave a shrill cheer which was echoed loudly by men and boy, and socheering they tramped out of the hall in the trail of MotherSatchell, Garlinge staggering under the load of pikes which the ladhad officiously foisted on to his shoulder, Clupp laughing vacantlyafter his manner, and steadfast old Shard waving his red cap andchirping his shrill huzzas.