Stanley John Weyman

“ Down this we sped swiftly, the sullen plash of the oars and the walls of rushes always with us. For ourselves, we crouched still and silent, shivering and listening for sounds of pursuit; now starting at the splash of a frog, again shuddering at the cry of a night-bird. The Duchess, her child, and I were in the bows, Master Lindstrom, his daughter, and Mistress Anne in the stern. ”

“ The moon was almost at the full, and the weather was dry, but scud after scud of thin clouds, sweeping across the breezy sky, obscured the light from time to time, and left nothing certain. We loosed the smallest boat in silence, and getting in, pulled gently round the lower end of the island, making for the fringe of rushes which marked the line of division between river and fen. We could hear the frogs croaking in the marsh, and the water lapping the banks, and gurgling among the tree-roots, and making a hundred strange noises to which daylight ears are deaf. ”

“ Sir Anthony viewed with complacence, if not with pride, any connection with the powerful Bishop of Winchester, for the knight knew the world, and could appreciate the value it sets on success, and the blind eyes it has for spots if they do but speckle the risen sun. I could make no such allowance, but, with the pride of youth and family, at once despised the great Bishop for his base blood, and blushed that the shame lay on our side. I hated this parade of doing honor to him, and would fain have hidden at home with Petronilla, my cousin, Sir Anthony's daughter, and awaited our guest there. ”

“ If I could beat aside his sword, I would spring upon him and drive the knife home with that hand. So, standing erect in bow and stern we faced one another, the man and the boy, the flush of rage and exertion on my cheek, a dark shade on his. And silently the boats drew together.
Thought is quick, quicker than anything else in the world I suppose, for in some drawn-out second before the boats came together I had time to wonder where I had seen his face before, and to rack my memory. I knew no Master Clarence, yet I had seen this man somewhere. ”

“ At the same moment Van Tree pushed past me, and, bounding up the steps, thrust his way through the officials on the scaffold, causing more than one fur-robed citizen near the edge to lose his balance and come down as best he could on the shoulders of the guards.
"What is it?" I cried. "What is it?" I cried in impatient wonder.
"Oh! my lad, my lad!" Master Lindstrom answered, his face close to mine, and the tears running down his cheeks. "It is cruel if it be not true! Cruel! They cry a pardon!" ”

“ Master Bertie broke in on my reverie much as if he had followed its course. "Understand one thing, lad!" he said, laying his hand on the withers of my horse. "Yours must not be the hand to punish your father. But after to-day you will owe him no duty. You will part from him to-day and he will be a stranger to you. He deserted you when you were a child; and if you owe reverence to any one, it is to your uncle and not to him. He has himself severed the ties between you." ”

“ We all stopped to listen. Yes, they were voices we heard--loud, strident tones, mingled now with the sullen plash of horses tramping through the water. I looked at the Duchess. Her face was pale, but her courage did not fail her. She understood in a trice that the danger we had so much dreaded was upon us--that we were followed, and the followers were at our heels; and she turned her horse round again. Without a word she spurred it back toward the deep part. I seized Anne's rein and followed, notwithstanding that the poor girl in her terror would have resisted. ”

“ He carried on his shoulder a long broad-bladed sword, and I guessed who he was, seeing how Master Lindstrom strove to intercept my view of him. But I was not afraid of that. I had heard long ago--perhaps six months in time, but it seemed long ago--how bravely Queen Jane had died. And if a girl had not trembled, surely a man should not. So I looked steadfastly at him, and took great courage, and after that was able to gaze calmly on the people, who pressed to stare at me, peeping over the soldiers' shoulders, and clustering in every doorway and window to see me go past. ”

“ No bishop had come heretic-hunting to Coton End. No abbey existed to excite dislike by its extravagance or by its license or by the swarm of ragged idlers it supported. Father Carey was the most harmless and kindest of men. The villagers did not care one way or the other. To them Sir Anthony was king. And if any one felt tempted to interfere, the old knight's face, as he gazed steadfastly at the brass effigy of a Cludde, who had fallen in Spain fighting against the Moors, warned the meddler to be silent. ”

“ Master Bertie answered gravely. "I would rather call it providential. Let us think of that, and be of better courage, friend. We have been used; we shall not be cast away before our time."
I looked back. For some minutes I had thought I heard behind us a light footstep, more like the pattering of a dog than anything else. I could see nothing, but that was not wonderful, for the moon was young and the sky overcast. "Do you hear some one following us?" I said.
Master Bertie drew rein suddenly, and turning in the saddle we listened. ”

“ After her husband's death she had made England ring with her name, first by a love match with a Lincolnshire squire, and secondly by her fearless and outspoken defense of the reformers. I did wonder indeed how she had come to be wandering in the streets at daybreak, an object of a chance passer's chivalry and pity.
"It is simple enough," she said dryly; "I am rich, I am a Protestant, and I have an enemy. When I do not like a person I speak out. Do I not, Richard?"
"You do indeed, my dear," he answered smiling.
"And once I spoke out to Bishop Gardiner. What! Do you know Stephen Gardiner?" ”

“ Word has come to us here of an enterprise Englandward, which promises, if it be truly reported to us, to so alter things at home that there may be room for us at our own firesides. Heaven so further it, both for our happiness and the good of the religion. Master Bertie has embarked on it, and I have taken upon myself to answer for your aid and counsel, which have never been wanting to us. Wherefore, dear friend, come, sparing neither horse nor spurs, nor anything which may bring you sooner to Wilna, and your assured and loving friend, Katherine Suffolk. ”

“ Outside, the sun fell hotly on the steep red roofs, with their rows of casements, and on the sleepy square, in which knots of people still lingered, talking of the morning's events. I could see below me the guard which Duke William, shrewdly mistrusting the Sub-dean, had posted in front of the house, nominally to do the Duchess honor. I could hear in the next room the cheerful voices of my friends. What happiness it was to live! What happiness to be loved! ”

“ If he had not driven you from home, you would never have helped me to escape from London, nor been with us to foil his agents."
"A higher power than the Chancellor arranged that!" said Master Bertie emphatically.
"Well, at any rate, I am glad that you are you!" the Duchess answered, rising gayly. "A Cludde? Why, one feels at home again. And yet," she continued, her lips trembling suddenly, and her eyes filling with tears as she looked at me, "there was never house raised yet on nobler deed than yours." ”

“ In answer to that I could do no more than give further assurance of my certainty on the point. "It was the man I saw in the boat at Greenwich," I declared positively. "Why should I imagine it?"
"All the same, I trust you have," she rejoined. "For, if it was indeed that arch scoundrel, we are undone."
"Imagination plays us queer tricks sometimes," Master Lindstrom said, with a smile of much meaning. "But come, lad, I will ask Dymphna, though I think it useless to do so. For whether you are right or wrong as to your friend, I will answer for it you are wrong as to my daughter." ”

“ Their boat shot nearer now, nearer and nearer, so that I could read the smile of triumph on the steersman's dark face and hear his cry of exultation. Nearer! and then with a cry I dropped the oars.
"Quick!" I panted to my companions. "Change places with me! So!" Trembling and out of breath as I was, I crawled between the women and gained the stern sheets of the boat. As I passed Mistress Bertram she clutched my arm. Her eyes, as they met mine, flashed fire, her lips were white. "The man steering!" she hissed between her teeth. "Leave the others. He is Clarence, and I fear him!" ”

“ But Master Bertie sat silent until the noise had subsided. Then he spoke. "You must not count on them either, Sir Thomas," he said firmly. "I cannot find it in my conscience to bring my wife's tenants into a plan so desperate as this appears to be. To appeal to the people generally is one thing; to call on those who are bound to us and who cannot in honor refuse is another. And I will not risk in a hopeless struggle the lives of men whose fathers looked for guidance to me and mine." ”

“ With a wild scream I turned and fled. By instinct, for terror had deprived me of reason, I hied to the bridge, and keeping, I knew not how, my footing upon the loose clattering planks, made one desperate rush across it. The shimmering water below, in which I saw that face a thousand times reflected, the breeze, which seemed the dead man's hand clutching me, lent wings to my flight. I sprang at a bound from the bridge to the bank, from the bank to the boat, and overturning, yet never seeing, my startled companion, shoved off from the shore with all my might--and fell a-crying. ”

“ So after all Sir Anthony had his way, and stalked out, stiff and unbending. Nor was there any falling off, but rather an increase in the respect with which his people rose, according to custom, as he passed. Yet under that increase of respect lay a something which cut the old man to the heart. He saw that his dependents pitied him while they honored him; that they thought him a fool for running his head against a stone wall--as Martin Luther put it--even while they felt that there was something grand in it too. ”

“ But the spirit of revenge had entered into him, and I soon learned that not even Penruddocke, a Cornish knight of longer lineage than purse, was so vehement a plotter or so devoted to the cause. Looking at the others my heart sank; it needed no greater experience than mine to discern that, except three or four whom I identified as stout professors of religion, they were men rather of desperate fortunes than good estate. I learned on the instant that conspiracy makes strange bedfellows, and that it is impossible to do dirty work even with the purest intentions--in good company! ”

“ To the right were more fields, and here and there amid them a homestead with its smaller ring of stacks and barns. When he turned to the left, his eyes, passing over the shoulders of Barnt Hill and Mill Head Copse and Beacon Hill, all bulwarks of the forest, followed the streak of river as it wound away toward Stratford through luscious flood meadows, here growing wide, and there narrow, as the woodland advanced or retreated.
"It is all mine," he said, as much to himself as to the girl. "It is all Cludde land as far as you can see." ”

“ I stammered, as she still pored on me in silence, still maintained her attitude. "What is the matter, Anne?"
"Are you quite a fool?" she whispered, her voice almost a hiss, her hot breath on my cheek. "Have you no sense left, that you trust that man?"
For a moment I failed to understand her. "What man?" I said. "Oh, Van Tree!"
"Ay, Van Tree! Who else? Will you go straight into the trap he has laid for you?" She moistened her lips with her tongue, as though they were parched. "You are all mad! Mad, I think! ”

“ Go back?"
"Steady! steady, Master Knight Errant!" the Duchess cried in her calm, brave voice. "I never knew you so bad a counselor before!"
"It is my fault that you are here," I said, looking dismally around.
"Perhaps the other road is as bad," Master Bertie replied. "At any rate, that is past and gone. The question is, what are we to do now? To remain here is to die of cold and misery. To go back may be to run into the enemy's arms. To go forward----"
"Will be to be drowned!" Mistress Anne cried with a pitiful sob. ”

“ When Master Lindstrom asked, "Alarm! What alarm?" I listened for his answer as I should have listened for the answer of a friend and ally, without hesitation, without distrust. For in truth the man was transfigured; changed by the rise of something to the surface which ordinarily lay hid in him. Before, he had seemed churlish, awkward, a boor. But in this hour of our need and of his opportunity he showed himself as he was. Action and purpose lifted him above his outward seeming. I caught the generous sparkle in his eye, and trusted him. ”

“ Cannot you see that if you insult and offend this young man--which you are doing out of pure wanton mischief, for you are not in love with the girl--he may ruin us?"
"Ruin us?" I repeated incredulously.
"Yes, ruin us!" she cried. "Here we are, living more or less in hiding through the kindness of Master Lindstrom--living in peace and quietness. But do you suppose that inquiries are not being made for us? Why, I would bet a dozen gold angels that Master Clarence is in the Netherlands, at this moment, tracking us." ”

“ For how should the announcement that my real name was Cludde terrify Mistress Anne Brandon nearly out of her senses?
"Well, no," Master Bertie agreed, his thoughtful face more thoughtful than usual; "so far as I heard, you said nothing. But I think, my dear, that you had better follow her and learn what it is. She must be ill."
The Duchess sat down. "I will go by-and-by," she said coolly, at which I was not much surprised, for I have always remarked that women have less sympathy with other women's ailments, especially of the nerves, than have men. ”

“ Mistress Anne's sleeve as she turned had swept from the table a Florentine jug, one of Master Lindstrom's greatest treasures, and it lay in a dozen fragments on the floor. We stood and looked at it, the Duchess in anger, Master Bertie and I in comic dismay. The girl's lip trembled, and she turned quite white as she contemplated the ruin she had caused.
"Well, you have done it now!" the Duchess said pitilessly. What woman could ever overlook clumsiness in another woman! "It only remains to pick up the pieces, miss. If a man had done it--but there, pick up the pieces. ”