Part 4 (2/2)
In the servants' hall there was an unusual stir occasioned by the preparations which were in train for the outriding of the messengers whom the secretary had put in requisition for the service of the night.
The first of these was Derrick Brown, a man of stout mould though somewhat advanced in years. He held in the establishment what might be termed the double post of master of the mews and keeper of the fox hounds, being princ.i.p.al falconer and huntsman of the household. The second was a short, plump little fellow, bearing the name of John Alward, who was one of the grooms of the stable. These two, now ready booted, belted and spurred, were seated on a bench, discussing a luncheon, with the supplement of a large jack or tankard of brown b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Several of the other domestics loitered in the hall, throwing in occasionally a word of advice to the riders, or giving them unsolicited aid in the carnal occupation of bodily reinforcement to which they were devoting themselves with the l.u.s.ty vigour of practised trenchermen. Leaning against the jamb of the ample fireplace, immediately below a lamp which tipped the prominent points of his grave visage with a sharp light, stood an old Indian, of ma.s.sive figure and swarthy hue, named Pamesack, or, as he was called in the English translation of the Indian word, The Knife. This personage had been, for some years past, at intervals, a privileged inmate of the Proprietary's family, and was now, though consigned to a portion of the duties of the evening, apparently an unconcerned spectator of the scene around him.
He smoked his pipe in silence, or if he spoke, it was seldom more than in the short monosyllable, characteristic of the incommunicative habits of his tribe.
”When I saw d.i.c.k Pagan, the James Town courier, coming into town this evening with his leather pouch slung across his shoulder,” said the elder of the riders, ”I guessed as much as that there would be matter for the council. News from that quarter now-a-days is apt to bring business for their wors.h.i.+ps. I warrant you the brother of Master Fendall hath been contriving an outcome in Virginia. I heard John Rye, the miller of St. Clements, say last Sunday afternoon, that Samuel Fendall had forty mounted men ready in the forest to do his bidding with broad-sword and carbine. And he would have done it too, if my Lord had not laid him by the heels at unawares. He hath a savage spite against my Lord and the chancellor both.”
”But knew ye ever the like before,” said John Alward, ”that his lords.h.i.+p should be in such haste to see their wors.h.i.+ps, he must needs have us tramping over the country at midnight? By the virtue of my belt, there must be a hot flavour in the news! It was a post haste letter.”
”Tush, copperface! What have you to do with the flavour of the news?
The virtue of thy belt, indeed! Precious little virtue is there within its compa.s.s, ha, ha! You have little to complain of, John Alward, for a midnight tramp. It is scant twelve miles from this to Mattapany, and thine errand is done. Thou mayst be snoozing on a good truss of hay in Master Sewall's stable before midnight, if you make speed. Think of my ride all the way to Notley Hall,--and round about by the head of the river too--for I doubt if I have any chance to get a cast over the ferry to-night. Simon the boat-keeper is not often sober at this hour: and if he was, a crustier churl--the devil warm his pillow!--doesn't live 'twixt this and the old world. He gets out of his sleep for no man.”
”But it is a dark road mine,” replied the groom. ”A plague upon it! I have no stomach for this bush and brier work, when a man can see the limb of a tree no more than a cobweb.”
”A dark road!” exclaimed the master of the kennels, laughing. ”A dark road, John! It is a long time, I trow, since there has been a dark road for thy night rides, with that nose s.h.i.+ning like a lighted link a half score paces around thee. It was somewhat deadened last September, I allow, when you had the marsh ague, and the doctor fed you for a week on gruel--but it hath waxed lately as bright as ever. I wish I could buckle it to my head-strap until to-morrow morning.”
A burst of laughter, at this sally, which rang through the hall, testified the effect of the falconer's wit and brought the groom to his feet.
”'S blood, you grinning fools!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”haven't you heard Derrick's joke a thousand times before, that you must toss up your scurvy ha-haws at it, as if it was new! He stole it--as the whole hundred knows--from the fat captain, old Dauntrees in the fort there; who would have got it back upon hue and cry, if it had been his own;--but the truth is, the Captain filched it from a play-book, as the surveyor told him in my hearing at Garret Weasel's, where the Captain must needs have it for a laughing matter.”
”It is a joke that burns fresh every night,” replied Derrick; ”a thing to make light of. So, up with the bottom of the pot, boy, and feed it with mother's milk: it will stand thee in stead to-night. Well done, John Alward! I can commend thee for taking a jest as well as another.”
”Master Derrick,” said the other, ”this is not the way to do his Lords.h.i.+p's bidding: if we must go, we should be jogging now. I would I had thy ride to take, instead of my own,--short as you think it.”
”Ha, say you that! By the rochet, John, you shall have it, an it please Master Secretary! But upon one condition.”
”Upon what condition?”
”That you tell me honestly why you would choose to ride twenty miles to Notley rather than twelve to Mattapany.”
”Good Derrick,” answered the groom, ”it is but as a matter of horsemans.h.i.+p. You have a broader road, and mine is a path much beset with brush-wood. I like not the peril of being unhorsed.”
”There is a lie in thy face, John Alward;--the Mattapany road is the broadest and best of the two--is it not so, Pamesack?”
”It is the first that was opened by the white man,” replied the Indian; ”and more people pa.s.s upon it than the other.”
”John,” said the falconer, ”you are a coward. I will not put you to the inventing another lie, but will wager I can tell you at one guess why you would change with me.”
”Out with it, Master Derrick!” exclaimed the bystanders.
”Oh, out with it!” repeated John Alward; ”I heed not thy gibes.”
”You fear the cross road,” said the falconer; ”you will not pa.s.s the fisherman's grave.”
”In troth, masters--I must needs own,” replied the groom, ”that I have qualms. I never was ashamed to tell the truth, and confess that I am so much of a sinner as to feel an honest fear of the devil and his doings.
I have known a horse to start and a rider to be flung at the cross road before now:--there are times in the night when both horse and rider may see what it turns one's blood into ice to look at. Nay, I am in earnest, masters:--I jest not.”
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