Part 17 (2/2)

”Well,” she said, ”our angling prospers blithely. We have tickled one fish. Now for the other chub.”

Halfman, who had been swaying with silent merriment ever since the departure of Master Paul, suddenly grew steady again and looked warnings.

”He asks for another kind of angling, as I gather,” he suggested.

Brilliana looked daintily wise.

”As I bait the hook I believe I will land him. It will be rare if I can make Paul rob Peter while Peter plunders Paul. How dare they be so close-fisted while the King's flag is flying and England's honor in peril!”

If she said this with any idea of palliating the possible lawlessness of her action in the eyes of her companion, she wasted her words.

Halfman had not been so happy since his return to England, not even in the briskest days of the siege, as he was now in the staging of this lawless comedy. The old pirate jigged in him at this fair maid's strategy.

”By St. Nicholas,” he swore, ”they should be bled white for a brace of knaves! This, I take it, is your other honor-bankrupt atomy.”

XVIII

SERVING THE KING

It was indeed Master Peter Rainham whom Tiffany now brought into the presence of her mistress, and left there standing and staring. Master Peter, eyed and appraised by the searching scrutiny of Halfman, resolved himself into a thick-set, boorish fellow, whose flying forehead, little, angry eyes, and a.s.sertive, yellow teeth made him, to Halfman's mind, resemble nothing in the world so much as a boar's head on an ale-house sign. Yet the fellow stood his ground st.u.r.dily enough, and stared at Brilliana with no sense of distress at his dirty homespun or his dirty hands.

”You sent for me?” he challenged. ”Have you changed your mood? I am ever of the same mind, and will wed when you will.”

The wolf look leaped into Halfman's eyes, and the loutish squire's life was, all unawares, in the greatest peril it had ever fringed.

But Brilliana, intent only on her purposes, beamed on her blunt suitor as if he had scattered flowers at her feet.

”You are a wonderful wooer,” she protested. ”But whatever admiration of your person I may, without unbecoming effrontery, confess, I would have you to know, plain and square, from this moment, that I will hearken to none but a King's man.”

The boor's little eyes glinted and the boor's rusty fingers rasped at his stubble chin as he answered emphatically:

”Then I am a King's man, root and branch.”

But his face showed less loyal confidence at Brilliana's next words.

”Then you must know his Majesty is in straits for ready money. Will you, who are reputed rich, come to his aid with a round sum?”

Master Peter showed his teeth in a snarl and flung up his hands.

”Reputed rich! Oh, what a bitter thing is a bad reputation. I am Job-poor; both ends will not meet, I tell you. If I had for lending-money a guinea in one pocket, why, I should lend it to the other pocket.”

”Why do you woo me if you be so poor?” Brilliana asked, with a fine show of heat, and Halfman nodded his head as much as to say, ”Ay, ay, answer me that, if you can.”

Master Peter strove to answer, lamely enough.

”Poor in pennies, lady, poorer in s.h.i.+llings, poorest in guineas. I may own half the country-side and have no coin to clink against the other.”

Brilliana scoffed at his protest.

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