The Tavern Knight Part 38

"When do you wish to proceed?"

"To-morrow."

"Why, then, sir, I have a proposal to make which will remove the need of your note of hand. Lend me your horses, sir, to reach Harwich. I wish to set out at once!"

"But your wound?" cried Cynthia. "You are still faint."

"Faint! Not I. I am awake and strong. My wound is no wound, for a scratch may not be given that name. So there, sweetheart." He laughed, and drawing down her head, he whispered the words: "Your father." Then turning again to Foster. "Now, sir," he continued, "there are four tolerable posthorses of mine below, on which you can follow tomorrow to Harwich, there exchanging them again for your own, which you shall find awaiting you, stabled at the Garter Inn. For this service, to me of immeasurable value, I will willingly cede those gewgaws to you."

"But, rat me, sir," cried Foster in bewilderment, "tis too generous--'pon honour it is. I can't consent to it. No, rat me, I can't."

"I have told you how great a boon you will confer. Believe me, sir, to me it is worth twice, a hundred times the value of those trinkets."

"You shall have my horses, sir, and my note of hand as well," said Foster firmly.

"Your note of hand is of no value to me, sir. I look to leave England to-morrow, and I know not when I may return."

Thus in the end it came about that the bargain was concluded. Cynthia's maid was awakened and bidden to rise. The horses were harnessed to Crispin's coach, and Crispin, leaning upon Harry Foster's arm, descended and took his place within the carriage.

Leaving the London blood at the door of the Suffolk Arms, crus.h.i.+ng, burning, d.a.m.ning and ratting himself at Crispin's magnificence, they rolled away through the night in the direction of Ipswich.

Ten o'clock in the morning beheld them at the door of the Garter Inn at Harwich. But the jolting of the coach had so hardly used Crispin that he had to be carried into the hostelry. He was much exercised touching the Lady Jane and his inability to go down to the quay in quest of her, when he was accosted by a burly, red-faced individual who bluntly asked him was he called Sir Crispin Galliard. Ere he could frame an answer the man had added that he was Thomas Jackson, master of the Lady Jane--at which piece of good news Crispin felt like to shout for joy.

But his reflection upon his present position, when at last he lay in the schooner's cabin, brought him the bitter reverse of pleasure. He had set out to bring Cynthia to his son; he had pledged his honour to accomplish it. How was he fulfilling his trust? In his despondency, during a moment when alone, he cursed the knave that had wounded him for his clumsiness in not having taken a lower aim when he fired, and thus solved him this ugly riddle of life for all time.

Vainly did he strive to console himself and endeavour to palliate the wrong he had done with the consideration that he was the man Cynthia loved, and not his son; that his son was nothing to her, and that she would never have accompanied him had she dreamt that he wooed her for another.

No. The deed was foul, and rendered fouler still by virtue of those other wrongs in whose extenuation it had been undertaken. For a moment he grew almost a coward. He was on the point of bidding Master Jackson avoid Calais and make some other port along the coast. But in a moment he had scorned the craven argument of flight, and determined that come what might he would face his son, and lay the truth before him, leaving him to judge how strong fate had been. As he lay feverish and fretful in the vessel's cabin, he came well-nigh to hating Kenneth; he remembered him only as a poor, mean creature, now a bigot, now a fop, now a psalm-monger, now a roysterer, but ever a hypocrite, ever a coward, and never such a man as he could have taken pride in presenting as his offspring.

They had a fair wind, and towards evening Cynthia, who had been absent from his side a little while, came to tell him that the coast of France grew nigh.

His answer was a sigh, and when she chid him for it, he essayed a smile that was yet more melancholy. For a second he was tempted to confide in her; to tell her of the position in which he found himself and to lighten his load by sharing it with her. But this he dared not do.

Cynthia must never know.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE AUBERGE DU SOLEIL

In a room of the first floor of the Auberge du Soleil, at Calais, the host inquired of Crispin if he were milord Galliard. At that question Crispin caught his breath in apprehension, and felt himself turn pale.

What it portended, he guessed; and it stifled the hope that had been rising in him since his arrival, and because he had not found his son awaiting him either on the jetty or at the inn. He dared ask no questions, fearing that the reply would quench that hope, which rose despite himself, and begotten of a desire of which he was hardly conscious.

He sighed before replying, and pa.s.sing his brown, nervous hand across his brow, he found it moist.

"My name, M. l'hote, is Crispin Galliard. What news have you for me?"

"A gentleman--a countryman of milord's--has been here these three days awaiting him."

For a little while Crispin sat quite still, stripped of his last rag of hope. Then suddenly bracing himself, he sprang up, despite his weakness.

"Bring him to me. I will see him at once."

"Tout-a-l'heure, monsieur," replied the landlord. "At the moment he is absent. He went out to take the air a couple of hours ago, and is not yet returned."

"Heaven send he has walked into the sea!" Crispin broke out pa.s.sionately. Then as pa.s.sionately he checked himself. "No, no, my G.o.d--not that! I meant not that."

"Monsieur will sup?"

"At once, and let me have lights." The host withdrew, to return a moment later with a couple of lighted tapers, which he set upon the table.

As he was retiring, a heavy step sounded on the stair, accompanied by the clank of a scabbard against the bal.u.s.ter.

"Here comes milord's countryman," the landlord announced.

And Crispin, looking up in apprehension, saw framed in the doorway the burly form of Harry Hogan.

He sat bolt upright, staring as though he beheld an apparition. With a sad smile, Hogan advanced, and set his hand affectionately upon Galliard's shoulder.

"Welcome to France, Crispin," said he. "If not him whom you looked to find, you have at least a loyal friend to greet you."

"Hogan!" gasped the knight. "What make you here? How came you here?

Where is Jocelyn?"

The Irishman looked at him gravely for a moment, then sighed and sank down upon a chair. "You have brought the lady?" he asked.

"She is here. She will be with us presently."

Hogan groaned and shook his grey head sorrowfully.

"But where is Jocelyn?" cried Galliard again, and his haggard face looked very wan and white as he turned it inquiringly upon his companion. "Why is he not here?"

"I have bad news."

"Bad news?" muttered Crispin, as though he understood not the meaning of the words. "Bad news?" he repeated musingly. Then bracing himself, "What is this news?"

"And you have brought the lady too!" Hogan complained. "Faith, I had hoped that you had failed in that at least."

"Sdeath, Harry," Crispin exclaimed. "Will you tell me the news?"

Hogan pondered a moment. Then:

"I will relate the story from the very beginning," said he. "Some four hours after your departure from Waltham) my men brought in the malignant we were hunting. I dispatched my sergeant and the troop forthwith to London with the prisoner, keeping just two troopers with me. An hour or so later a coach clattered into the yard, and out of it stepped a short, lean man in black, with a very evil face and a crooked eye, who bawled out that he was Joseph Ashburn of Castle Marleigh, a friend of the Lord General's, and that he must have horses on the instant to proceed upon his journey to London. I was in the yard at the time, and hearing the full announcement I guessed what his business in London was. He entered the inn to refresh himself and I followed him. In the common room the first man his eyes lighted on was your son. He gasped at sight of him, and when he had recovered his breath he let fly as round a volley of blasphemy as ever I heard from the lips of a Puritan. When that was over, "Fool," he yells, "what make you here?" The lad stammered and grew confused. At last--"I was detained here," says he. "Detained!" thunders the other, "and by whom?" "By my father, you murdering villain!" was the hot answer.

"At that Master Ashburn grows very white and very evil-looking. "So," he says, in a playful voice, "you have learnt that, have you? Well, by G.o.d!

the lesson shall profit neither you nor that rascal your father. But I'll begin with you, you cur." And with that he seizes a jug of ale that stood on the table, and empties it over the boy's face. Soul of my body!

The lad showed such spirit then as I had never looked to find in him.

"Outside," yells he, tugging at his sword with one hand, and pointing to the door with the other. "Outside, you hound, where I can kill you!"

Ashburn laughed and cursed him, and together they flung past me into the yard. The place was empty at the moment, and there, before the clash of their blades had drawn interference, the thing was over--and Ashburn had sent his sword through Jocelyn's heart."