Читать книгу Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 - Various - Страница 12

Five times had Johan, the player’s boy, met young Lindley at the edge of the Ogilvie woods. Five times he had reported nothing of any interest concerning Mistress Judith Ogilvie, or, rather, the sum of the five reports had amounted to naught. Once he said that Mistress Judith was, if anything, quieter than usual. Again he told that her maids had said that she had been in a fine rage when Master Lindley had braved her wrath by appearing at her home and demanding an interview with her. But when her father had taxed her with her rudeness in refusing to descend and speak with her cousin, she had merely shrugged her shoulders and said that Master Lindley was of too little consequence even to discuss. She had been little with the players. Johan himself had had much trouble in gaining any interviews with her. She had spent more time than usual sewing with the maids. She had spent more time with her father, giving as an excuse that she could not ride abroad because her horse was lame. But Johan averred that he had seen one of the stable lads exercising Star and there had been nothing wrong with the horse.

On the sixth night Johan, peering up at Lindley from under his black curls, asked if any inference could be gathered from aught that he had reported and Lindley was obliged to confess that he saw none. The shadows of the trees fell all about them.

“If Mistress Judith knew that I was watching her to make report to you,” hazarded the lad, “it might almost seem as though she were playing some part for your benefit, so different is all this from her former ways, but – ”

“But she does not know,” Lindley concluded the sentence.

“Nay, how could she know?” the lad asked. “If she knew she would but include me in her hatred of you. She would deny me all access to her, and that I could not bear. ’Tis all of no use, my master. Mistress Judith is quite outside of all chance of your winning her. So little have I done that I’ll gladly release you from your bargain if you’ll but give up all hope of winning her.”

“I’ve no faint heart, boy,” answered Lindley. “Your Mistress Judith will come to my call yet, you’ll see.”

“I’m not so sure I’d like to see that day, my master,” answered the lad, in a whimsical tone. “But, in all honesty, I should tell you – I mean I’m thinking – ” He hesitated.

“Well, boy, you’re thinking what?” questioned Lindley, impatiently. “Though I offered not to pay you for your thoughts.”

“No, I give you my thoughts for no pay whatsoever.” Johan’s voice was still full of a restrained mirth. “And you must remember, too, that I told you at the first that I myself was a lover of Mistress Judith Ogilvie. That, perhaps, gives me better understanding of the maid. That, perhaps, makes my thoughts of value.”

“Well, and what do you think?” demanded Lindley.

“I – I was going to say” – the boy spoke slowly – “it seems to me that – that Mistress Judith may already be in love.”

“In love!” echoed Lindley. “And with whom, pray you, might Mistress Judith be in love? Whom has she seen to fall in love with? Where has she been to fall in love? It was only last week that you told me that Mistress Judith had sworn that she would never be in love with any man – that she would never be won by any man.”

“Ay, but maids – some maids – change their minds as easily as their ribbons, my master,” quoth the boy, somewhat sententiously.

“What reason have you for your opinion that Mistress Judith may be in love?” Lindley’s question broke a short silence, and he bit his lip over the obnoxious word.

“I – why, it seems to me that her docility might prove it, might it not? I – it’s a lover’s heart that speaks to you, remember – a heart that loves mightily, a heart that yearns mightily. But is not docility on a maid’s part a sign of love? Might it not be? It seems to me that if I were a maid and I’d fallen desperately and woefully in love, I’d be all for gentleness and quiet, I’d sew with my maids and dream of love, I’d give all of my time to my father from whom love was so soon to take me. That’s what I should think a maid would do, and that is what Mistress Judith has done for a week past. And then to-day, as I hung about outside her windows, I heard her rating her maids. Mistress Judith’s voice can be quite high and shrill when she is annoyed, you may remember; and the one complete sentence that I heard was this: ‘Am I always to be buried in a country house, think ye, and what would town folk think of stitches such as those if they could see them? But see them they’ll not, for you’ll have to do some tedious ripping here, my girls, and some better stitches.’ Now” – the boy’s lips curled dolorously – “does not that sound to you as though Mistress Judith were contemplating some change in her estate, as though she had already given her heart to some town gallant?”

Lindley’s brows were black and his lips, too, were curled. But curses were the rods that twisted them.

“What devil’s work is the girl up to now?” he demanded, savagely. “She’s doubtless met some ne’er-do-well unbeknown to Master Ogilvie. I must see Mistress Judith at once, on the very instant, and have it out with her.”

“Oh, no, no!” cried Johan, the player’s boy. “You’ll but drive her on in any prank she’s bent on.”

“Then it’s Master Ogilvie I’ll see,” declared Lindley. “Where have all your eyes been that the girl could have met a lover; that she could have seen anyone with whom to fall in love? She must not fall in love with anyone save me. Do you hear, boy? I love her. I love her.”

“Ah, then it is your heart that’s engaged in this matter,” commented Johan. “I thought, perhaps – why, perhaps it was merely Mistress Judith’s defiance of her father’s wishes that led you on to wish to marry her. You – you really do love Mistress Judith, for herself? Really love her as a lover ought to love?”

“You’re over curious, my lad,” growled Lindley. “And yet ’tis my own fault, I suppose. I’ve given you my confidence.”

“But how know you that you love Mistress Judith?” persisted the boy.

“I love her – I love her because I’ve loved her always,” answered Lindley, passionately. “I loved her when I was ten, when she was six, when her golden head was no higher than my heart.”

“’Tis somewhat higher now, I think.” The boy’s words were very low. “More like her heart would match to yours. Her eyes are as high above the ground as your own. Her lips would not be raised to meet your lips.”

Lindley’s face had grown scarlet.

“Be silent, boy,” he cried. “You speak over freely of sacred things.”

The lad, backing away from under Lindley’s upraised arm, still murmured, echoing Lindley’s words: “Sacred things!” and added: “Mistress Judith’s heart! Her eyes! Her lips!”

What Lindley’s answer might have been from lips and hand the lad never knew. It was checked by a sudden onslaught from behind. Out from the low bushes that hedged the woods sprang two figures in hoods and cloaks. The foremost was tall and burly, though agile enough. The second seemed but a clumsy follower. In an instant Lindley’s sword was engaged with that of the leader. For only an instant Johan hesitated. Drawing a short sword from under his cloak, he sprang upon the second of the highwaymen. Their battle was short, for the fellow’s clumsiness made him an easy victim for the slender youth. Pinked but slightly in the arm, he gave vent to an unearthly howl and, turning away, he fled through the dark aisles of the woods, his diminishing shrieks denoting the speed and length of his flight.

But Johan’s victory came not a second too soon, for just at that moment Lindley’s sword dropped from his hand, the blood spurting from a deep wound in his shoulder. With a low snarl of victory, the highwayman drew back his arm to plunge his sword into his victim’s breast, but Johan, springing forward and picking Lindley’s weapon from the ground, hurled himself upon their assailant.

“Not so fast, my friend,” he cried, and in another second blades were again flashing. Lindley, who for a moment had been overwhelmed by the shock of his wound, raised a useless voice in protest. Johan’s own voice drowned every sound as he drove his antagonist now this way, now that, quite at his own will.

The moon, in its last quarter, was just rising above the trees, and the narrow glade was lighted with its weird, fantastic glow. From one side of the road to the other, the shadowy figures moved, the steel blades flashing in the glinting light, Johan’s short, sharp cries punctuating the song of the swords. Lindley could hear the ruffian’s heavy breathing as Johan forced him up the bank that edged the road. He heard his horse’s nervous whinny as the fight circled his flanks. But Lindley was so fascinated by the brilliancy of the lad’s fighting that he had no thought of the outcome of the fray until he heard a sudden sharp outcry. Then he saw Johan stagger back, but he saw at the same instant that the highwayman had fallen, doubled over in a heap, upon the ground. He saw, too, that Johan’s sword, trailing on the ground, was red with blood.

“You’re hurt, lad!” Lindley, faint from loss of blood, staggered toward the boy.

“Ay, ay, hurt desperately,” moaned Johan. His voice seemed weak and faltering.

“But how? But where? I did not see him touch you!” Lindley’s left arm encircled the lad, his right hung limp at his side.

Johan’s head sank for an instant onto Lindley’s shoulder.

“No, he did not touch me, ’tis no bodily hurt,” he moaned; “but I’ve – I’ve killed the man.”

Lindley’s support was withdrawn instantly and roughly.

“After such a fight, are you fool enough to bemoan a victory?” His words, too, were rough. “Why, man, it was a fight to the death! You’d have been killed if you had not killed. Did you think you were fighting for the fun of it? You’re squeamish as a woman.”

Johan tried to recover his voice. He tried to stand erect.

“I did it well, did I not?” An unsteady laugh rang out. “The play acting, I mean. You forget, Master Lindley, that I’m a player, that in my parts I’m more often a woman than a man. And we actors are apt to grow into the parts we oftenest counterfeit.” Suddenly he staggered and the sword clattered from his hand. But again he straightened himself. “Would I gain applause as a woman, think you?”

“If it’s play acting, have done with it,” growled Lindley, whose wound was hurting; who, in reality, was almost fainting from loss of blood. “You’ve saved my life as well as your own, Johan. But we’ll touch on that later. There’s no fear, is there, that your dead man will come to life?”

The boy for the first time raised his eyes to Lindley’s face. Even in the darkness he could see that it was ghastly white and drawn with pain. A nervous cry burst from his lips, and he stretched both arms toward Lindley.

“Da – damn your play acting, boy,” sputtered Lindley. “Nay, I mean not to be so harsh. I’ll – I’ll not forget the debt I owe you either. But you must help me to The Jolly Grig, where Marmaduke has skill enough to tend my wound until I can reach London.”

“But Master Ogilvie has skill in the care of wounds,” cried Johan. “Surely we are nearer Master Ogilvie’s than The Jolly Grig. And Mistress Judith will – ”

“Nay, I’ll not force myself on Mistress Judith in this way,” answered Lindley, petulantly.

“You are over considerate of Mistress Judith’s feelings, even for a lover,” returned the boy.

“Ah, it’s not Mistress Judith’s feelings I’m considerate of,” replied Lindley. “She’s capable of saying that I got the wound on purpose to lie in her house, on purpose to demand her care.”

Here Johan’s unsteady laugh rang out once more.

“Indeed she’s capable of that very thing, my master,” he said, and as he spoke he began to tear his long coat into strips.

“What are you doing that for?” demanded Lindley, leaning more and more heavily against his horse’s side.

“It’s a bandage and a sling for your arm,” answered the boy. “If you will persist in the ride to The Jolly Grig, your arm must be tied so that it will not bleed again.”

“’Twill be a wonder if you do not faint away like a woman when you touch the blood,” scoffed Lindley.

“’Twill be a wonder, I’m thinking myself,” answered the boy, unsteadily.

And then, the bandage made and adjusted, Johan offered his shoulder to assist the wounded man into the saddle. But Lindley, pressing heavily yet tenderly against the lad, said gently:

“I’ve been rough, Johan, but believe me, this night’s work will stand you in good stead. Hereafter your play acting may be a matter of choice, but never again of necessity.”

“Heaven grant that the necessity will never again be so great!” murmured Johan, indistinctly.

“I – I did not understand,” faltered Lindley, reaching the saddle with difficulty.

“I said – why I said,” stammered Johan, “Heaven be praised that there would be no more necessity for play acting.”

Arrived at The Jolly Grig, Master Marmaduke Bass’ perturbed face boded ill for his surgical skill.

“Hast heard the news, my master?” he cried, before he saw the condition of his guest. “Ah, Mr. Lindley, ’tis about a friend of your own, too – a friend who was with you here not a week ago.”

“I – I care not for your news, whatever it may be, whomever it may be about,” groaned Lindley, who was near the end of his endurance.

“Master Lindley’s met with highwaymen,” interrupted Johan. “Perchance ’tis the Black Devil himself. He’s wounded and has need of your skill, not of your news.”

“Met with my Lord Farquhart!” cried honest Marmaduke. “But that’s impossible. My Lord Farquhart’s been in prison these twelve hours and more, denounced by his cousin, the Lady Barbara Gordon!”

It would have been hard to say which was the whiter, Master Lindley or Johan, the player’s boy. It would have been difficult to distinguish between their startled voices.

“Lord Farquhart! In prison!”

“Ay, Lord Farquhart. The Black Devil. The Black Highwayman. Denounced at a festival at my Lord Grimsby’s by the Lady Barbara Gordon.”