The Black Arrow: A Tale of Two Roses
Page 20
BOOK IV--THE DISGUISE
CHAPTER I--THE DEN
The place where Dick had struck the line of a high-road was not far fromHolywood, and within nine or ten miles of Shoreby-on-the-Till; and here,after making sure that they were pursued no longer, the two bodiesseparated. Lord Foxham's followers departed, carrying their woundedmaster towards the comfort and security of the great abbey; and Dick, ashe saw them wind away and disappear in the thick curtain of the fallingsnow, was left alone with near upon a dozen outlaws, the last remainderof his troop of volunteers.
Some were wounded; one and all were furious at their ill-success and longexposure; and though they were now too cold and hungry to do more, theygrumbled and cast sullen looks upon their leaders. Dick emptied hispurse among them, leaving himself nothing; thanked them for the couragethey had displayed, though he could have found it more readily in hisheart to rate them for poltroonery; and having thus somewhat softened theeffect of his prolonged misfortune, despatched them to find their way,either severally or in pairs, to Shoreby and the Goat and Bagpipes.
For his own part, influenced by what he had seen on board of the GoodHope, he chose Lawless to be his companion on the walk. The snow wasfalling, without pause or variation, in one even, blinding cloud; thewind had been strangled, and now blew no longer; and the whole world wasblotted out and sheeted down below that silent inundation. There wasgreat danger of wandering by the way and perishing in drifts; andLawless, keeping half a step in front of his companion, and holding hishead forward like a hunting dog upon the scent, inquired his way of everytree, and studied out their path as though he were conning a ship amongdangers.
About a mile into the forest they came to a place where several ways met,under a grove of lofty and contorted oaks. Even in the narrow horizon ofthe falling snow, it was a spot that could not fail to be recognised; andLawless evidently recognised it with particular delight.
"Now, Master Richard," said he, "an y' are not too proud to be the guestof a man who is neither a gentleman by birth nor so much as a goodChristian, I can offer you a cup of wine and a good fire to melt themarrow in your frozen bones."
"Lead on, Will," answered Dick. "A cup of wine and a good fire! Nay, Iwould go a far way round to see them."
Lawless turned aside under the bare branches of the grove, and, walkingresolutely forward for some time, came to a steepish hollow or den, thathad now drifted a quarter full of snow. On the verge, a great beech-treehung, precariously rooted; and here the old outlaw, pulling aside somebushy underwood, bodily disappeared into the earth.
The beech had, in some violent gale, been half-uprooted, and had torn upa considerable stretch of turf and it was under this that old Lawless haddug out his forest hiding-place. The roots served him for rafters, theturf was his thatch; for walls and floor he had his mother the earth.Rude as it was, the hearth in one corner, blackened by fire, and thepresence in another of a large oaken chest well fortified with iron,showed it at one glance to be the den of a man, and not the burrow of adigging beast.
Though the snow had drifted at the mouth and sifted in upon the floor ofthis earth cavern, yet was the air much warmer than without; and whenLawless had struck a spark, and the dry furze bushes had begun to blazeand crackle on the hearth, the place assumed, even to the eye, an air ofcomfort and of home.
With a sigh of great contentment, Lawless spread his broad hands beforethe fire, and seemed to breathe the smoke.
"Here, then," he said, "is this old Lawless's rabbit-hole; pray Heaventhere come no terrier! Far I have rolled hither and thither, and hereand about, since that I was fourteen years of mine age and first ran awayfrom mine abbey, with the sacrist's gold chain and a mass-book that Isold for four marks. I have been in England and France and Burgundy, andin Spain, too, on a pilgrimage for my poor soul; and upon the sea, whichis no man's country. But here is my place, Master Shelton. This is mynative land, this burrow in the earth! Come rain or wind--and whetherit's April, and the birds all sing, and the blossoms fall about mybed--or whether it's winter, and I sit alone with my good gossip thefire, and robin red breast twitters in the woods--here, is my church andmarket, and my wife and child. It's here I come back to, and it's here,so please the saints, that I would like to die."
"'Tis a warm corner, to be sure," replied Dick, "and a pleasant, and awell hid."
"It had need to be," returned Lawless, "for an they found it, MasterShelton, it would break my heart. But here," he added, burrowing withhis stout fingers in the sandy floor, "here is my wine cellar; and yeshall have a flask of excellent strong stingo."
Sure enough, after but a little digging, he produced a big leathernbottle of about a gallon, nearly three-parts full of a very heady andsweet wine; and when they had drunk to each other comradely, and the firehad been replenished and blazed up again, the pair lay at full length,thawing and steaming, and divinely warm.
"Master Shelton," observed the outlaw, "y' 'ave had two mischances thislast while, and y' are like to lose the maid--do I take it aright?"
"Aright!" returned Dick, nodding his head.
"Well, now," continued Lawless, "hear an old fool that hath beennigh-hand everything, and seen nigh-hand all! Ye go too much on otherpeople's errands, Master Dick. Ye go on Ellis's; but he desireth ratherthe death of Sir Daniel. Ye go on Lord Foxham's; well--the saintspreserve him!--doubtless he meaneth well. But go ye upon your own, goodDick. Come right to the maid's side. Court her, lest that she forgetyou. Be ready; and when the chance shall come, off with her at thesaddle-bow."
"Ay, but, Lawless, beyond doubt she is now in Sir Daniel's own mansion."answered Dick.
"Thither, then, go we," replied the outlaw.
Dick stared at him.
"Nay, I mean it," nodded Lawless. "And if y' are of so little faith, andstumble at a word, see here!"
And the outlaw, taking a key from about his neck, opened the oak chest,and dipping and groping deep among its contents, produced first a friar'srobe, and next a girdle of rope; and then a huge rosary of wood, heavyenough to be counted as a weapon.
"Here," he said, "is for you. On with them!"
And then, when Dick had clothed himself in this clerical disguise,Lawless produced some colours and a pencil, and proceeded, with thegreatest cunning, to disguise his face. The eyebrows he thickened andproduced; to the moustache, which was yet hardly visible, he rendered alike service; while, by a few lines around the eye, he changed theexpression and increased the apparent age of this young monk.
"Now," he resumed, "when I have done the like, we shall make as bonny apair of friars as the eye could wish. Boldly to Sir Daniel's we shallgo, and there be hospitably welcome for the love of Mother Church."
"And how, dear Lawless," cried the lad, "shall I repay you?"
"Tut, brother," replied the outlaw, "I do naught but for my pleasure.Mind not for me. I am one, by the mass, that mindeth for himself. Whenthat I lack, I have a long tongue and a voice like the monastery bell--Ido ask, my son; and where asking faileth, I do most usually take."
The old rogue made a humorous grimace; and although Dick was displeasedto lie under so great favours to so equivocal a personage, he was yetunable to restrain his mirth.
With that, Lawless returned to the big chest, and was soon similarlydisguised; but, below his gown, Dick wondered to observe him conceal asheaf of black arrows.
"Wherefore do ye that?" asked the lad. "Wherefore arrows, when ye takeno bow?"
"Nay," replied Lawless, lightly, "'tis like there will be headsbroke--not to say backs--ere you and I win sound from where we're goingto; and if any fall, I would our fellowship should come by the crediton't. A black arrow, Master Dick, is the seal of our abbey; it showethyou who writ the bill."
"An ye prepare so carefully," said Dick, "I have here some papers that,for mine own sake, and the interest of those that trusted me, were betterleft behind than found upon my body. Where shall I conceal them, Will?"
"Nay," replied Lawless, "I will g
o forth into the wood and whistle methree verses of a song; meanwhile, do you bury them where ye please, andsmooth the sand upon the place."
"Never!" cried Richard. "I trust you, man. I were base indeed if I nottrusted you."
"Brother, y' are but a child," replied the old outlaw, pausing andturning his face upon Dick from the threshold of the den. "I am a kindold Christian, and no traitor to men's blood, and no sparer of mine ownin a friend's jeopardy. But, fool, child, I am a thief by trade andbirth and habit. If my bottle were empty and my mouth dry, I would robyou, dear child, as sure as I love, honour, and admire your parts andperson! Can it be clearer spoken? No."
And he stumped forth through the bushes with a snap of his big fingers.
Dick, thus left alone, after a wondering thought upon the inconsistenciesof his companion's character, hastily produced, reviewed, and buried hispapers. One only he reserved to carry along with him, since it in nowisecompromised his friends, and yet might serve him, in a pinch, against SirDaniel. That was the knight's own letter to Lord Wensleydale, sent byThrogmorton, on the morrow of the defeat at Risingham, and found next dayby Dick upon the body of the messenger.
Then, treading down the embers of the fire, Dick left the den, andrejoined the old outlaw, who stood awaiting him under the leafless oaks,and was already beginning to be powdered by the falling snow. Eachlooked upon the other, and each laughed, so thorough and so droll was thedisguise.
"Yet I would it were but summer and a clear day," grumbled the outlaw,"that I might see myself in the mirror of a pool. There be many of SirDaniel's men that know me; and if we fell to be recognised, there mightbe two words for you, brother, but as for me, in a paternoster while, Ishould be kicking in a rope's-end."
Thus they set forth together along the road to Shoreby, which, in thispart of its course, kept near along the margin or the forest, comingforth, from time to time, in the open country, and passing beside poorfolks' houses and small farms.
Presently at sight of one of these, Lawless pulled up.
"Brother Martin," he said, in a voice capitally disguised, and suited tohis monkish robe, "let us enter and seek alms from these poor sinners._Pax vobiscum_! Ay," he added, in his own voice, "'tis as I feared; Ihave somewhat lost the whine of it; and by your leave, good MasterShelton, ye must suffer me to practise in these country places, beforethat I risk my fat neck by entering Sir Daniel's. But look ye a little,what an excellent thing it is to be a Jack-of-all-trades! An I had notbeen a shipman, ye had infallibly gone down in the Good Hope; an I hadnot been a thief, I could not have painted me your face; and but that Ihad been a Grey Friar, and sung loud in the choir, and ate hearty at theboard, I could not have carried this disguise, but the very dogs wouldhave spied us out and barked at us for shams."
He was by this time close to the window of the farm, and he rose on histip-toes and peeped in.
"Nay," he cried, "better and better. We shall here try our false faceswith a vengeance, and have a merry jest on Brother Capper to boot."
And so saying, he opened the door and led the way into the house.
Three of their own company sat at the table, greedily eating. Theirdaggers, stuck beside them in the board, and the black and menacing lookswhich they continued to shower upon the people of the house, proved thatthey owed their entertainment rather to force than favour. On the twomonks, who now, with a sort of humble dignity, entered the kitchen of thefarm, they seemed to turn with a particular resentment; and one--it wasJohn Capper in person--who seemed to play the leading part, instantly andrudely ordered them away.
"We want no beggars here!" he cried.
But another--although he was as far from recognising Dick andLawless--inclined to more moderate counsels.
"Not so," he cried. "We be strong men, and take; these be weak, andcrave; but in the latter end these shall be uppermost and we below. Mindhim not, my father; but come, drink of my cup, and give me abenediction."
"Y' are men of a light mind, carnal, and accursed," said the monk. "Now,may the saints forbid that ever I should drink with such companions! Buthere, for the pity I bear to sinners, here I do leave you a blessedrelic, the which, for your soul's interest, I bid you kiss and cherish."
So far Lawless thundered upon them like a preaching friar; but with thesewords he drew from under his robe a black arrow, tossed it on the boardin front of the three startled outlaws, turned in the same instant, and,taking Dick along with him, was out of the room and out of sight amongthe falling snow before they had time to utter a word or move a finger.
"So," he said, "we have proved our false faces, Master Shelton. I willnow adventure my poor carcase where ye please."
"Good!" returned Richard. "It irks me to be doing. Set we on forShoreby!"