Beau Brocade Part 5

Mistress Betty's saucy brown eyes followed Jock Miggs's quaint, retreating figure.

"Well! you're a pretty bit of sheep's wool, ain't ye?" she shouted after him, with a laugh and a shrug of her plump shoulders.

Then she peered into the forge.

"Lud love you, Master Stich!" she said, "how goes it with you?"

In obedience to counsels of prudence, Stretton had retired into the remote corner of the forge. John Stich too was masking the entrance with his burly figure.

"All the better, Mistress Betty," he said, "for a sight of your pretty face."

He had become very red, had honest John, and his rough manner seemed completely to have deserted him. In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it, the worthy smith looked distinctly shy and sheepish.

She looked up at him and laughed a pleased, coquettish little laugh, the laugh of a woman who has oft been told that she is pretty, and has not tired of the hearing. John Stich, moreover, was so big and burly, folks called him hard and rough, and it vastly entertained the young damsel to see him standing there before her, as awkward and uncomfortable as Jock Miggs himself.

"Am I not to step inside, Master Stich?" she asked.

"Yes, yes, Mistress Betty," murmured John, who seemed to have lost himself in admiration of a pair of tiny buckled shoes muddy to the ankles-such ankles!-which showed to great advantage beneath Betty's short green kirtle.

An angry, impatient movement behind him, however, quickly recalled his scattered senses.

"Did her ladys.h.i.+p receive a letter, mistress?" he asked eagerly.

"Oh, yes! a stranger brought it," replied Betty, with a pout, for she preferred John's mute appreciation of her small person to his interest in other matters. However, the demon of mischief no doubt whispered something in her ear for the further undoing of the worthy smith, for she put on a demure, mysterious little air, turned up her brown eyes, sighed with affectation, and murmured ecstatically,-

"Oh! such a stranger! the fine eyes of him, Master Stich! and such an air, and oh!" added little madam with unction, "such clothes!"

But though no doubt all these fine airs and graces wrought deadly havoc in poor John's heart, he concealed it well enough under a show of eager impatience.

"Yes! yes! the stranger," he said, casting a furtive glance behind him, "he gave you a letter for my lady?"

"La! you needn't be in such a hurry, Master Stich!" retorted Mistress Betty, adding with all the artifice of which she was capable, "the stranger wasn't."

But this was too much for John. There had been such a wealth of meaning in Betty's brown eyes.

"Oh! he wasn't? was he?" he asked with a jealous frown, "and pray what had he to say to you? There was no message except the letter."

But the demon of mischief was satisfied and Betty was disposed to be kind, even if slightly mysterious.

"Oh, never mind!" she rejoined archly, "he gave me a letter which I gave to my lady. That was early this morning."

"Well? ... and?"

But matters were progressing too slowly at anyrate for one feverish, anxious heart. Philip had tried to hold himself in check, though he was literally hanging on pretty Mistress Betty's lips. Now he could contain himself no longer. Lady Patience had had his letter. The mysterious highwayman had not failed in his trust, and the news Betty had brought meant life or death to him.

Throwing prudence to the winds, he pushed John Stich aside, and seizing the young girl by the wrist, he asked excitedly,-

"Yes? this morning, Betty? ... then ... then ... what did her ladys.h.i.+p do?"

Betty was frightened, and like a child was ready to drown her fright in tears. She had not recognised my lord in those dirty clothes.

"Don't you know me, Betty?" asked Philip, a little more quietly.

Betty cast a timid glance at the two men before her, and smiled through the coming tears.

"Of course, my lord ... I ..." she murmured shyly.

"'Tis my nephew Jim out o' Nottingham, mistress," said John, sternly, "try and remember that: and now tell us what did her ladys.h.i.+p do?"

"She had the horses put to, not an hour after the stranger had been.

Thomas is driving and Timothy is our only other escort. But we've not drawn rein since we left the Hall!"

"Yes! yes!" came from two pairs of eager lips.

"And my lady stopped the coach about two hundred yards from here,"

continued Betty with great volubility, "and she told me to run on here, to see that the coast was clear. She knew I could find my way, and she wouldn't trust Timothy as she trusts me," added the young girl with a pretty touch of pride.

"But where is she, Betty? where is she?"

Betty pointed to the clump of firs, which stood like ghostly sentinels on the crest of the hill, just where the road turns sharply to the east.

"Just beyond those trees, my lord, and she made Timothy watch until I came round the bend and in sight of the forge. But la! the mud on the roads! 'tis fit to drown you."

But already John Stich was outside, beckoning to Mistress Betty.

"Come, mistress, quick!" he said excitedly, "her ladys.h.i.+p must be nigh crazy with impatience. By your leave, my lord, I'll help Mistress Betty on her way, and I'll keep this place in sight. I'll go no further..."

"Yes, yes," rejoined Philip, feverishly, "go, go, fly if you can! I'll be safe! I'll not show myself. G.o.d give you both wings, for I'll not live now till I see my sister."

Eager, boyish, full of wild gaiety, he seemed to have thrown off his morbid anxiety as he would a mantle. He even laughed whole-heartedly as he watched Betty, with many airs and graces, "Luds!" and "I vows!"

making great pretence at being unable to walk in the mud, and leaning heavily on honest Stich's arm.

He watched them as they picked their way up the so-called road, a perfect quagmire after the heavy September rains.

The air seemed so different now, the Heath smelt good, there was vigour and life in the keen nor'-wester; how green the bracken looked, and how harmoniously it seemed to blend with the purple shoots of the bramble laden with ripening fruit! how delicate the more tender green of the gorse, and there that vivid patch of mauve, the first glimpse of opening heather! the heavy clouds too were rolling away; the September sun was going to have his own way after all and spread his kingdom of blue and gold over the distant Derbys.h.i.+re hills.

Hope had come like the divine magician to chase away all that was grey and sad and dreary, and Hope had met Youth and shaken him by the hand: they are such friends, such inseparable companions, these two!

What mattered it that some few yards away the old gallows, like some eerie witch, still spread its gaunt arm over that fluttering bit of parchment: the Proclamation of His Majesty's Parliament? What though it spoke of death, of treachery, of bills of attainder, of Tower Hill?

Did not the good nor'-wester from the Moor flutter round it, and in wanton frolic attack it now with madcap fury and a shrill whistle, and now with a long-drawn-out sigh. The parchment resisted with vigour, it bore the onslaught of the wind twice, thrice, and once again. But the nor'-wester was not to be outdone, and again it renewed the attack, took the parchment by the corner, pulled and twisted at it, until at last with one terrific blast it tore the Royal Proclamation off the old gallows, and sent it whirling in a mad gallop across the Moor, far, very far away on to Derby, to London, to the place where all winds go.

CHAPTER V

"THERE'S NONE LIKE HER, NONE!"