The Tavern Knight - Rafael Sabatini

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for Hogan to have entered the house. With this, and realizing that much trouble and possible loss of time must result from Sir Crispin's obstinacy, did they attempt to force a way into the house, and bethinking himself, also, maybe, how well this rascally ruffler stood with Lord Middleton, the ensign determined to withdraw, and to seek elsewhere.

      And so he took his leave with a venomous glance, and a parting threat to bring the matter to the King's ears, upon which Galliard slammed the door before he had finished.

      There was a curious smile on Crispin's face as he walked slowly to the table, and resumed his seat.

      “Master Stewart,” he whispered, as he spread his cards anew, “the comedy is not yet played out. There is a face glued to the window at this moment, and I make little doubt that for the next hour or so we shall be spied upon. That pretty fellow was born to be a thief-taker.”

      The boy turned a glance of sour reproof upon his companion. He had not stirred from his chair while Crispin had been at the door.

      “You lied to them,” he said at last.

      “Sh! Not so loud, sweet youth,” was the answer that lost nothing of menace by being subdued. “Tomorrow, if you please, I will account to you for offending your delicate soul by suggesting a falsehood in your presence. To-night we have a man's life to save, and that, I think, is work enough. Come, Master Stewart, we are being watched. Let us resume our game.”

      His eye, fixed in cold command upon the boy, compelled obedience. And the lad, more out of awe of that glance than out of any desire to contribute to the saving of Hogan, mutely consented to keep up this pretence. But in his soul he rebelled. He had been reared in an atmosphere of honourable and religious bigotry. Hogan was to him a coarse ruffler; an evil man of the sword; such a man as he abhorred and accounted a disgrace to any army—particularly to an army launched upon England under the auspices of the Solemn League and Covenant.

      Hogan had been guilty of an act of brutality; he had killed a man; and Kenneth deemed himself little better, since he assisted in harbouring instead of discovering him, as he held to be his duty. But 'neath the suasion of Galliard's inexorable eye he sat limp and docile, vowing to himself that on the morrow he would lay the matter before Lord Middleton, and thus not only endeavour to make amends for his present guilty silence, but rid himself also of the companionship of this ruffianly Sir Crispin, to whom no doubt a hempen justice would be meted.

      Meanwhile, he sat on and left his companion's occasional sallies unanswered. In the street men stirred and lanthorns gleamed fitfully, whilst ever and anon a face surmounted by a morion would be pressed against the leaded panes of the window.

      Thus an hour wore itself out during which poor Hogan sat above, alone with his anxiety and unsavoury thoughts.

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      Towards midnight at last Sir Crispin flung down his cards and rose. It was close upon an hour and a half since Hogan's advent. In the streets the sounds had gradually died down, and peace seemed to reign again in Penrith. Yet was Sir Crispin cautious—for to be cautious and mistrustful of appearances was the lesson life had taught him.

      “Master Stewart,” said he, “it grows late, and I doubt me you would be abed. Give you good night!”

      The lad rose. A moment he paused, hesitating, then—

      “To-morrow, Sir Crispin—” he began. But Crispin cut him short.

      “Leave to-morrow till it dawn, my friend. Give you good night. Take one of those noisome tapers with you, and go.”

      In sullen silence the boy took up one of the candle-bearing bottles and passed out through the door leading to the stairs.

      For a moment Crispin remained standing by the table, and in that moment the expression of his face was softened. A momentary regret of his treatment of the boy stirred in him. Master Stewart might be a milksop, but Crispin accounted him leastways honest, and had a kindness for him in spite of all. He crossed to the window, and throwing it wide he leaned out, as if to breathe the cool night air, what time he hummed the refrain of `Rub-a-dub-dub' for the edification of any chance listeners.

      For a half-hour he lingered there, and for all that he used the occasion to let his mind stray over many a theme, his eyes were alert for the least movement among the shadows of the street. Reassured at last that the house was no longer being watched, he drew back, and closed the lattice.

      Upstairs he found the Irishman seated in dejection upon his bed, awaiting him.

      “Soul of my body!” cried Hogan ruefully, “I was never nearer being afraid in my life.”

      Crispin laughed softly for answer, and besought of him the tale of what had passed.

      “Tis simple enough, faith,” said Hogan coolly. “The landlord of The Angel hath a daughter maybe 'twas after her he named his inn—who owns a pair of the most seductive eyes that ever a man saw perdition in. She hath, moreover, a taste for dalliance, and my brave looks and martial trappings did for her what her bold eyes had done for me. We were becoming the sweetest friends, when, like an incarnate fiend, that loutish clown, her lover, sweeps down upon us, and, with more jealousy than wit, struck me—struck me, Harry Hogan! Soul of my body, think of it, Cris!” And he grew red with anger at the recollection. “I took him by the collar of his mean smock and flung him into the kennel—the fittest bed he ever lay in. Had he remained there it had been well for him; but the fool, accounting himself affronted, came up to demand satisfaction. I gave it him, and plague on it—he's dead!”

      “An ugly tale,” was Crispin's sour comment.

      “Ugly, maybe,” returned Hogan, spreading out his palms, “but what choice had I? The fool came at me, bilbo in hand, and I was forced to draw.'

      “But not to slay, Hogan!”

      “Twas an accident. Sink me, it was! I sought his sword-arm; but the light was bad, and my point went through his chest instead.”

      For a moment Crispin stood frowning, then his brow cleared, as though he had put the matter from him.

      “Well, well—since he's dead, there's an end to it.”

      “Heaven rest his soul!” muttered the Irishman, crossing himself piously. And with that he dismissed the subject of the great wrong that through folly he had wrought—the wanton destruction of a man's life, and the poisoning of a woman's with a remorse that might be everlasting.

      “It will tax our wits to get you out of Penrith,” said Crispin. Then, turning and looking into the Irishman's great, good-humoured face—“I am sorry you leave us, Hogan,” he added.

      “Not so am I,” quoth Hogan with a shrug. “Such a march as this is little to my taste. Bah! Charles Stuart or Oliver Cromwell, 'tis all one to me. What care I whether King or Commonwealth prevail? Shall Harry Hogan be the better or the richer under one than under the other? Oddslife, Cris, I have trailed a pike or handled a sword in well-nigh every army in Europe. I know more of the great art of war than all the King's generals rolled into one. Think you, then, I can rest content with a miserable company of horse when plunder is forbidden, and even our beggarly pay doubtful? Whilst, should things go ill—as well they may, faith, with an army ruled by parsons—the wage will be a swift death on field or gallows, or a lingering one in the plantations, as fell to the lot of those poor wretches Noll drove into England after Dunbar. Soul of my body, it is not thus that I had looked to fare when I took service at Perth. I had looked for plunder, rich and plentiful plunder, according to the usages of warfare, as a fitting reward for a toilsome march and the perils gone through.

      “Thus I know war, and for this have I followed the trade these twenty years. Instead, we have thirty thousand men, marching to battle as prim and orderly as a parcel of acolytes in a

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