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"The Trumpet and the Swan,"
Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., London, 1938
"The Trumpet and the Swan,"
Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., London, 1938
WHEN the Civil War broke out in England, between King and Parliament, the country was divided into the followers of King Charles I and those of Lord Essex and General Cromwell, who were the military leaders.
The King's wife, Henrietta Maria, was the sister of the French King, Louis XIII, and she went to France after the battle of Edgehill in order to try and get help for her husband.
But the French would not interfere in the English quarrel, and the Queen was in great difficulty and poverty. She obtained, however, from her brother some jewels that had belonged to her mother, and she wanted to send these to the King, so that he could pay his troops.
She knew that he could sell them by sending them to Amsterdam, where he had a friend in his sister, the Princess of Orange.
But she could not think of any way to get these jewels safely and secretly to England, until she found a boy to help her, and this is the story of his adventures.
A boon, a boon, my gracious liege,
I beg a boon of thee!
The first adventure that befalls
May be allowed to me!
The first adventure shall be thine,
The Queen did smiling say.
Not many days, when lo! there came
This venture on the way—
Old Ballad
A small ivory Swan in the palm of his hand.
THE Queen lived in a crooked side street, and although the day was cold she had very little fire in the grate and no carpet on the floor. Captain Jaye was ashamed to see his Sovereign's wife so shabbily lodged, but he had nothing but his wits and his sword to put at her service, for he had been quite ruined by the war between King and Parliament.
But the Queen was full of courage and even cheerfulness as she had been in the days of her splendour at Whitehall Palace.
"Look, Captain Jaye," she said eagerly to her faithful servitor, "what I have at last obtained."
"Madame, pray be cautious," the anxious gentleman advised, and he went to the door and looked down the small wooden staircase.
But there was no one to be seen and not a sound to be heard. Captain Jaye closed the door again and went to the window and made the same careful scrutiny, while the Queen waited with an indulgent but impatient smile by a cupboard in the wall, her hand on the lock. It might have been supposed that anyone as unfortunate as the Queen Henrietta Maria would not have been worth any attention on the part of her enemies, for ever since the war had begun the Queen's gallant efforts to help her husband had ended in failure. Although she was sister to the French King he was not able to help her because his Ministers did not want a war with England. And as she had spent all her fortune and all she could beg from her friends in the King's cause, she was reduced to this poverty.
But Captain Jaye knew that the spies of Oliver Cromwell were keeping a keen watch on Henrietta Maria, for though she might be penniless she was possessed of a dauntless spirit worth more than wealth.
"Is it safe, now?" she said, in her pretty broken English. And when he assured her that there was no one spying on them that he could see, she quickly unlocked the cupboard and brought out a large casket.
This she placed on the table and Captain Jaye watched with a tender respect the excitement that coloured her thin cheeks.
Henrietta Maria was a small, delicately made woman, with long black ringlets and large dark eyes. The misfortune that had not damped her courage had not destroyed her charming gracious air, and though she was dressed now in a plain grey gown with a black hood over her head she still seemed as much the Queen as she had seemed on the day of her coronation when she had blazed with jewels, the gems that had long since been sold to pay her husband's soldiers.
"See here, Captain Jaye, is this not a piece of good luck?"
She unlocked, then opened, the lid of the casket and the pale, spring sunshine falling through the high-set windows glittered on a set of diamonds—necklace, bracelets, earrings—and a large cross made of emeralds.
"My brother gave it me," said the Queen, her eyes sparkling with pride and joy. "He is still my good friend, you see, although his Ministers prevent him helping me. As you know, they will not even let me live in the Palace for fear I induce him to help me. But he has given this to me secretly. See!" She picked the jewels up and they ran, like white fire shot with sparks of blue and red, through her little fingers.
"Shut the casket, madame, in Heaven's name!" cried Captain Jaye. "I believe that even the walls have eyes and ears in Paris."
The Queen laughed, but did as her faithful friend suggested.
"Now," she said, "there is no time to lose. You must take these jewels to England, to my husband."
She rapidly gave her reasons for selecting Captain Jaye for this dangerous honour. His mother had been French and he spoke the language fluently; he had been chosen by King Charles, after the defeat at Edgehill, to go to Paris with messages for the Queen because of his resource and bravery and his cleverness in disguises. He had travelled as a poor friar and safely delivered the King's letters, and since then he had been able to do the Queen many little services. He was a good musician and he lodged in the house of one of the Queen's friends, who was the trumpeter to the King of France and who lived in a little alley near to the house where the Queen dwelt.
Captain Jaye's present disguise was that of a sober artisan. He was supposed to be a Frenchman who helped in the shop, polishing and practising on the brass instruments his master made.
"I thought," said the Queen eagerly, "that you could travel under the name you have now—Paul Dubois. You could say that you were going to Henry Knibbs, the King's trumpeter, who lives near St. Paul's Cathedral. Your errand will be to order some trumpets for the King, my brother, and also to sell on behalf of your master some French flageolets. There you will get further instructions. Mr. Knibbs is always in touch with King Charles."
"That is excellently thought out, madame," cried Captain Jaye, who was overjoyed at the prospect not only of doing a service to the Queen, but of returning to England. He did not really care about this spy work, useful as he knew it to be, but wished to take up his commission again with King Charles and fight as a Captain in the Royal Horse. Yet it seemed as if his fighting days had ended with the defeat at Edgehill.
"May I take my son with me?" he added. "Though he is only eighteen years of age he is stout and able, quick with his wits and with his hands; he longs to fight for His Majesty."
"I have noticed him," said the Queen, "and approved him. But," she added, "do you care for him to run the risks he must if he joins you on this mission?"
Captain Jaye replied proudly that Matthew was yearning to do something for the King's cause, and fretting in his exile, of late, since he had been doing nothing more useful than running easy errands to England and working out cyphers.
"Alas!" said Henrietta Maria, and a cloud passed over her bright face, "you have sacrificed your estate, your wealth for me and the King, and now you are willing to sacrifice your only son."
But Captain Jaye spoke cheerfully. He did not think the errand was very difficult or dangerous. There was no reason to suppose that the Republican spies, though these were active in Paris, would be able to prevent the jewels from getting through to King Charles.
"I think I have successfully thrown them off my track," he smiled. "They do not recognize in Paul Dubois, who works in a brass instrument maker's shop and plays the whistle-flute so well, an officer in King Charles's army. Matthew can go as my assistant or apprentice."
"The scheme is well thought out," the Queen agreed. "My brother knows of it and will do all he can to protect you." She took from her pocket a little Swan cut in thick, pure ivory. "You are to keep this with you and, if you have any difficulty while still in France, you are to show this to any member of my brother's army you may come at, and he will give you a free passage. You may also show it when you are in England. It is the pass-sign of King Charles's agents. I do not know if the King is at Oxford still—Mr. Knibbs will tell you."
She offered Captain Jaye her hand, and when he kissed her cold fingers he said, regretfully:
"Surely, madame, you might keep one of these diamonds and buy yourself some comforts. If only," he added, with a sad smile, "a few coals for your grate."
But the Queen laughed in a great-hearted manner, as she gave him the key of the casket that she had relocked.
"I would not keep ducats for myself," she said, "while the King requires money to pay his troops and bread to feed them. Now, do not stay here any longer. Nothing could make me happier than to know you well upon your way."
So Captain Jaye took his leave and, passing quickly down the narrow stairway, paused in the passage to transfer the gems that the Queen had given him in the casket into the pouch that he carried at his girdle. He thought that they would be safer there. Then, with the empty casket, that was humble enough and might have been a box of ordinary papers, under his arm, and the key in his pocket, he passed into the twisting, narrow street.
It was evening of a day in late March; the sky was grey above the crooked roofs and irregular chimney-pots of the Paris streets, a little cold rain spattered on the round, dirty cobble-stones.
The cavalier had sacrificed his long locks to his disguise and, with his cropped hair and plain brown doublet and breeches, he looked at first glance what he was supposed to be—a spruce shopman of the better sort.
He did not dare to wear a sword—that weapon was the privilege of gentlemen; but he had a sharp dagger concealed in his bosom and he kept cautiously on the alert for possible enemies. More than one of King Charles's agents in Paris had been attacked and killed.
But there was no one in sight in the forlorn little street that looked so gloomy in the thickening twilight but Matthew, his son, who, in the plain dress of an apprentice boy, was leaning against one of the houses and with an indifferent air practising on one of the little whistle-flutes that his master, M. Morand, had acquired so much fame in making.
"Come along," said Captain Jaye in French, for father and son did not dare talk English together lest the sound of that language should attract unwelcome attention.
As Matthew fell into step beside him, he told him in a few words the Queen's errand, and the boy's eyes sparkled with pleasure. Not only was he delighted at having a share in so exciting an adventure, he very much wished to return to England and to enlist in the King's army.
His mother had died soon after the outbreak of the Civil War; their estates had been abandoned after the battle of Marston Moor, and Matthew Jaye felt that he had nothing to live for but serving King Charles, and if possible helping him to regain his crown.
"The jewels," added Captain Jaye, still speaking in French and with a casual air in case there was someone lurking in a doorway or leaning from a darkened window to observe his manner, and using a tone so low that he could not possibly be overheard, "are of great value. I have never seen such large stones. They are diamonds of the purest water and from the Treasury of the King of France."
"How is King Charles to sell them?" asked Matthew shrewdly. "There is no one in England now who could buy gems of such value."
"They would be sent to Holland," replied his father, "where His Majesty's sister, the Princess of Orange, will be able to turn them into cash for him with some Amsterdam merchants. They will advance a goodly sum on the jewels I hold here."
He added with a laugh: "Matthew, I think we shall have two dangers to encounter. Not only may Puritan spies be on our trail, but the agents of the King of France's Ministers will certainly be after us if they discover that His Majesty has been giving away some of the Grown Jewels to help his sister."
They had now come out on one of the quays; the river rolled grey and sullen far below the stone embankment, the clouds were curdling into a thicker darkness overhead, and the chimes of Paris were ringing out from towers and steeples calling the good citizens to prayer.
"I shall be glad to leave Paris and to be in England again," said Matthew with a sigh of relief. "And this time, Father, you will not be able to prevent me joining the King's army."
"No," replied Captain Jaye, gravely, "you are old enough now, Matthew, and we will fight side by side."
He looked with pride and affection at his son, who was now as tall as he was himself, though not so heavy in build. Matthew Jaye was a good-looking English boy, fair hair cut short, grey eyes keen and steady, his blunt-featured face fresh-complexioned.
He had been at Shrewsbury school when the war had broken out and had spent three years of his life in flight, in hiding, and in exile. But his splendid health and skill and strength had stood him in good stead during these misfortunes. He was a fine athlete and had always excelled at sports and games; since he had been a little child his father had trained him, at the fine estate of Sitherhow in Berkshire, to ride with grace, to shoot straight, to fence, to play tennis, to row, and even to learn the rough country sports of quarter-staff and cudgel play.
"Yes," agreed Captain Jaye, "I too shall be glad to see the last of Paris. It is not pleasant being always in disguise. Besides, I think we are in continual danger, too—the French don't like the English exiles. They are afraid we are going to involve them in a war."
"How cowardly that seems," cried Matthew impulsively. "Would you not think, sir, that our Queen being the French King's sister, he would hasten to her aid—openly, instead of sending her jewels in secret as if he was afraid."
"He is afraid," replied his father grimly. "He is afraid of his Ministers, and above all of the Cardinal Mazarin."
They had now left the quay with the glimpse of grey waters and the bitter winds and turned into the pleasant well-kept street where the trumpeter's shop was set a little way down a narrow alley.
M. Morand was as celebrated as his English colleague, Mr. Knibbs, in the making of brass instruments, and his sign was a large trumpet hanging from an iron bracket. In the bow window of the brass instrument maker's shop with its small panes of greenish glass were specimens of his craft. Powder flasks, wind guns, speaking trumpets, and hearing horns for deaf people were flanked by French horns, trumpets, and flageolets, while either side stood some magnificent kettledrums with the cipher of King Louis on their banneroles.
"What time shall we start to-morrow?" asked Matthew, with less than his usual discretion, for the street seemed so empty. He spoke in English and added: "Of course, it is to-morrow we are going?"
"Yes, to-morrow," replied Captain Jaye. "The instructions are in the bag where I have placed the jewels." He touched his side; he could not finish his sentence for two men glided quietly—they had felt slippers drawn over their leather boots—from a deep, ornate doorway. Leaf hats were pulled over their eyes and each held on his arm a riding cloak.
"Look out, Father!" cried Matthew, suddenly, but too late.
While the boy closed with one of the men, the other had thrown his cloak round his father. There was a short, fierce fight between the stout English boy and his assailant, then the man, having evidently achieved his object, flung Matthew—for he was a great powerful fellow—roughly on to the cobbles, and fled into the thickening dusk.
Matthew picked himself up at once and ran to his father, who lay on the ground. The boy noticed at once that the casket was gone.
"We have been watched and followed, after all," he exclaimed with a groan, and kneeling by his father he raised him in his arms, looking anxiously into his pale face down which the blood was trickling.
Captain Jaye had received an ugly knock on the head; there was a deep cut across his forehead. But he was conscious and hastily, though in a feeble voice, assured his son that he had taken no serious hurt.
"And they haven't got the jewels either, Matt," he whispered.
"Thank God for that!" exclaimed the boy, assisting his father to his feet.
There was now no sign of anyone in the street; evidently the two men had been set on them to rob them of the casket and, thinking they had the jewels, had at once hastened away with their supposed spoils.
"Let us get into the shop," said Matthew, "before they discover their mistake."
He helped his father across the threshold and into the little parlour at the back of the shop, where the old instrument maker, M. Morand, was seated before a large bright wood fire, practising, as was his custom, on one of his own exquisite flageolets.
When he saw the plight of the Englishman he rose with an expression of dismay on his round, good-natured features.
Matthew hastily told their adventure, and Mme. Morand was called and at once began to bathe with vinegar and to dress the wound on Captain Jaye's head.
"I can travel just the same to-morrow," he said anxiously. But the brass instrument maker told him not to fret and they helped him upstairs to the small room he shared with Matthew.
It was soon clear that he would not be able to leave the bed, much less the kingdom. The wound, that was deeper than appeared at first, became inflamed and painful. A physician was sent for and by then the Englishman had fallen into a fever in which he muttered deliriously.
The doctor said that the patient was not in any great danger, but he must have a few days of rest and careful nursing. The misfortune was explained to him as the work of thieves who had cudgelled Captain Jaye and snatched his purse.
When the physician had left, M. Morand, his wife, and Matthew stared at each other in dismay.
"The plan had been so carefully worked out," exclaimed the old brass instrument maker, "and now it has come to nothing through these rogues. How was it they knew you had the jewels?"
"I cannot think truly," replied Matthew. "They must have been spying very carefully. I wish I knew," he added with an angry flush. "My father might have been killed."
"God be praised," said Mme. Morand soberly, "he is safe. But it is clear he cannot travel, perhaps for a week and more. Meanwhile, you will be under observation, and every effort will be made to steal the jewels as soon as the spies discover the casket is empty."
"There is only one thing for me to do," said Matthew quietly, "and that is for me to go to England alone. You see," he added, with increasing eagerness as he saw the doubt on the faces of his two friends, "the plan will work out just the same. I shall be your assistant sent to buy trumpets for the French King from Mr. Knibbs, and to sell in return some of your whistles and flutes. I have the password, the sign which is the Swan, and all the instructions. I have, too," he added proudly, "the diamonds." And he touched the stout leather pouch at his side which he had transferred from his father's belt to his own.
Mme. Morand, who had acted as a mother towards Matthew and who was very attached to him, was protesting against this course. She declared it to be difficult and dangerous, and rather beyond the wits and powers of a mere boy.
But her husband said that it was, in the sad circumstances, the best they could do. And he even advised that Matthew should start as early as possible in the morning and be clear of Paris before the spies had thought out the next move in the game.
"If my father," said Matthew, "locked the casket, as he probably did—I found the key in his pocket—after he had taken the jewels from it, it will take them some time to pick the lock, because I saw that it was a very intricate affair. And probably," he added shrewdly, "those two men will not have authority to do that themselves and will have to take the casket to whoever employed them."
And so it was arranged. And after Matthew had seen his father made as comfortable as possible he had his own supper, washed his face and hands in some of the pleasantly aromatic water supplied by Mme. Morand, and went to snatch some rest on the palliasse in his father's chamber.
Captain Jaye, under the influence of the soothing drugs given by the doctor, slept soundly, and Matthew had a few hours of undisturbed sleep.
An early riser, however, he woke with the dawn and was making his preparations, putting his money and his papers in the pockets of his doublet, placing the symbol of the Swan conveniently in the palm of his glove and considering where to dispose of the jewels, when he heard English voices below.
Curious as to what this might mean he went to the head of the stairs and heard Mme. Morand using her few words of broken English to argue and protest.
She was talking to a woman, an Englishwoman, Matthew was sure, who was insisting in desperate, tearful tones on some favour being granted to her.
The boy could not hear the voice of an Englishwoman—and this was a gentle, pleasant voice—unmoved. Paris was full of English exiles, many of them in great distress; either wounded officers and broken men no longer fit to fight, or old people, women, and children who dare not return to England until the King had recovered his throne. All their goods and estates had been seized by the new Government of England and these poor exiles were often reduced to grim poverty, living on such small supplies as could be smuggled from England, or on the charity of French sympathizers.
So Matthew ran down the stairs. It was known to most of the English colony that he was living here, and that he was not the Frenchman he was supposed to be, but an Englishman in disguise.
The fire was already burning in the grate in the little parlour, and he saw the meal laid for him to partake before his early start.
Passing quickly into the shop he saw Mme. Morand in earnest dispute with a lady and a girl. The lady was soberly, even shabbily, dressed, but was obviously of gentle birth. She looked pale and fatigued and her hands trembled as she clasped them in appeal.
The girl was of about twelve years of age, well grown and strong, but also pale, with her lips unnaturally compressed and her eyes downcast. She was dressed as if for travelling, in a hood and cloak of a common brown material, and she carried a small, shabby valise.
When the lady saw Matthew she exclaimed with relief.
"Ah, here is the young gentleman! I am sure he will not refuse me. Is it not true, sir, that you are going to England, to-day?"
"Yes, I am going to England," replied Matthew cautiously, "though I do not know how the news got out. I have to take some letters to friends. If you have any, madame," he added courteously, "I will willingly deliver them, if possible, in England. You know I occasionally act as postboy in this way."
"Yes, indeed," replied the lady gratefully. "And very diligent and clever you have been. But now I hear that there has been a sad attack upon your father."
"He is not seriously hurt." said Matthew, "but this time I must go alone."
He was careful not to mention the jewels, and he was wondering rather vexedly how the news of his departure had come out so soon, for not many hours had elapsed since Queen Henrietta Maria had instructed his father to take the diamonds to England.
But the lady soon explained this. She said that when she had entered the shop she had been surprised to see the fire lit and the meal laid in the parlour beyond, and Mme. Morand had explained to her that the young gentleman was going to England.
"It was, indeed, a fortunate chance, Mr. Jaye," added the lady, who had been trembling with eagerness. "I want you to do me a service. I thought you might be going to England soon and came on the hope ..."
Mme. Morand, who had been straining her ears to understand this English conversation, now interrupted quickly:
"But, Matthew, you cannot do what this lady asks. Your business is important—this is impossible! We do not even know who they are."
The lady raised her eyes in sad rebuke.
"You are rightly suspicious, madame; there are many spies about—both French and English. But I can give you very good credentials."
And she went on to explain that she was the widow of a Colonel Faulkner who had been killed at the battle of Marston Moor. She had fled to Paris after her utter ruin and earned a poor livelihood by renting a small house and letting out the rooms to other exiles, who managed to pay her enough to exist upon. Among her lodgers, she explained, had been the child, whose name was Sybil Quare, and her mother, Mrs. Alice Quare. They were the sole survivors of their family—the husband and two brothers having been killed In the war in a skirmish outside Reading. "And Mrs. Quare did not long survive them," said the lady sadly. "She died in Paris a few weeks ago, and now Sybil is homeless and penniless."
Mme. Morand spoke before Matthew could reply.
"Of course it is terrible," she said firmly, "but there are many such cases in Paris now. And what you ask, madame, is impossible."
And with a quick movement she tried to push the lady and the child out of the shop door into the narrow cobbled street.
But Matthew interrupted.
"Let us at least hear what they want," he said.
"I have heard what they want," replied the Frenchwoman grimly. "They want you to take the little girl to England with you."
"Yes, indeed," said the lady eagerly. "That is what I implore. I have no means to keep her here, but she has relatives in England who would look after her. You see, though they are secretly Royalist, they have given in to the Puritans and are not interfered with."
The child, who had not yet spoken, at this said in a clear, sweet voice: "Pray do not let us trouble these good people, Mrs. Faulkner. I can even go to England by myself."
"No, that's impossible!" said Matthew, and a sudden thought struck him that he pondered carefully.
"Surely," said Mme. Morand, suspiciously, "among all the English people in Paris there is someone who would look after this little girl?"
Matthew glanced at her in surprise. It was strange to hear a woman usually so good-natured speak, as he thought, so harshly. But he could not concern himself much about this; he had his own most important business to be after—it was getting late, and the instructions that he had been carefully reading in his room had told him that a horse would be at the gales of Paris at half-past seven.
Meanwhile Mrs. Faulkner was assuring the Frenchwoman that she and her companions were living in such poverty that it would be impossible to keep the girl.
"My lodgers cannot pay for their rooms," she said, with tears in her eyes and a touching earnestness, "I am really keeping them out of charity on the few shillings I make by renting out the ground floor as a vegetable shop."
Matthew looked at the little girl; he felt sorry for her. How humiliating for her to have to stand there while her affairs were discussed and her complete helplessness was exposed! She looked to him like the kind of girl he would wish to have for his sister—one neither foolish nor bold. Though her pretty, compact features were quivering on the verge of tears, she did not cry and there was dignity and courage in the firm set of her trim little figure. Matthew, being an observant lad, noted, however, the nervous grip of her fingers on her travelling-box and the firm, almost desperate, set of her small mouth.
He felt very sorry indeed for Sybil Quare, but he was pretty level-headed and knew that he could not afford to put his sentiments before his business. But it had suddenly occurred to him that the child might serve his turn very well and that he could combine a good deed towards her with profit to himself.
So he exclaimed, interrupting the argument between the two women:
"I believe I can take Mistress Sybil with me after all. It will surely lend a good complexion to my journey to be travelling with this young lady."
As soon as he said this Mrs. Faulkner's face brightened and that of the Frenchwoman became downcast. Plucking at his doublet she began whispering to him in French that this was a very foolish thing to do and the company of a child was bound to hamper him and land him in danger.
But Matthew, who had been thinking clearly and rapidly, thought otherwise. What would seem more natural than that he should travel as the escort of the little girl who was returning after the death of her mother to her friends and her kinsfolk in England?
"I can say," he said with a smile, "that I am on a double errand—one to purchase the trumpets for the French King and to conduct some business with Mr. Knibbs, the other to protect this child. No one will suspect that someone who has hampered himself with a little girl would be doing dangerous work. Nay," said he, waxing more enthusiastic as he spoke, "I am sure this is an excellent idea. Only, I hope"—he turned to Sybil Quare—"that you are ready at once, mistress, because I cannot have any delay."
The child glanced down at the case she held.
"This is all I possess," she answered with dignity.
Mrs. Faulkner now began to overwhelm the young man with grateful thanks. She also wanted to know what his errand was. She guessed it was something of importance to the Royalist cause, and she begged that she might be entrusted with the honour of the secret.
But here Matthew was firm.
"The fewer people who know what I am really doing the better," he said. "It is quite enough, Mrs. Faulkner, for you to understand that I am taking a message to someone in King Charles's army. You understand that, don't you?" He turned earnestly again to Sybil Quare. "We may get into some danger, but no one would hurt you, and if anything happens to me you can always find some protection. I suppose once I get you across the Channel," he added, "it will not be difficult to send you to your people."
"They live in Kent, near Rochester," said Sybil, "and I believe once I was in England I could find my way there very well."
"I daresay in peace time," said Mrs. Faulkner, "but remember that the country is in a state of war, and you must ask this young gentleman to stay by you as long as he can."
With that she kissed the child and, again expressing effusive thanks, left the shop, after pressing into Sybil's hand a piece of gold that was, she said, all her mother had left her and that might suffice to pay the expenses of her journey.
"Keep that as a reserve," said Matthew; "I will pay all our costs as long as we are together. Sew that inside your bodice, somewhere where a casual thief will not be likely to know of it."
He then asked Mme. Morand if she would give the girl a dish of warm milk and a piece of bread as they were about to start and he thought by her pale looks that she had had no breakfast.
But Sybil refused all refreshment and went and sat on a stool in a shadowed corner, her hands resolutely clasped on her lap, her hood neatly tied under her chin, and her box by her side.
Mme. Morand followed Matthew upstairs, where he was putting together his saddlebags and the model trumpet, fastening a short sword under his cloak, and making the final preparations for his journey. She began to protest vehemently about the foolish thing he was doing.
"I don't think so indeed," protested Matthew. "I'm sure it will help me. As I said before, nobody will suspect the two of us. They might have had their doubts about my father, but I am sure that we shall slip through. Besides," he added, "it came back to me that Colonel Faulkner was a friend of my father's—I'm sure he fought beside him at Edgehill. I wish he was well enough to question."
He looked at the bed in the corner where Captain Jaye, formerly of His Majesty's Horse, lay in a heavy sleep following the drugs and fever.
"Well, I can see it is no use to protest any more," said Mme. Morand. But she was still doubtful, and when the two departed she gave the child a resentful look and her farewells were dry.
"I can see your friend, the brass instrument maker's wife, does not like me," said Sybil as the two passed along the streets, still in a grey half-light, for the sun had not risen above the crooked roof-tops of Paris.
They were followed by M. Morand's faithful man, Jean, who carried the saddlebags and Sybil's valise.
Sybil Quare was perhaps only five years younger than Matthew Jaye, but he looked upon her as a child and himself as a man, so he answered her in a humouring kind of way.
"Oh, Mme. Morand is a very good woman. She has been a kind friend indeed to me since I have been working in Paris. She is concerned about my errand."
"And is that so important?" asked Sybil with a suspicion of disdain that Matthew did not relish. "I should suppose," she added, "that, if it were, your father would have gone with you."
"My father was hurt; he was attacked by robbers in the street last night," replied Matthew, for he had made up his mind that he would tell no one the truth of his adventure or that he suspected the thieves who had wounded his father of being Parliamentary agents. After all, it might not have been so; there were many footpads about in Paris, which was badly policed, and it was quite possible that two ordinary ruffians had robbed his father of the casket.
"Well," said Sybil primly, "I suppose it is very fortunate for me that you are going to England. I don't like it at all in Paris. Mrs. Faulkner was good to me, but I had to do very hard work in her house; she can't afford a serving-girl. Not that I minded," added the child, quickly; "of course, I have to help all I can when everyone is so unfortunate. But I had to draw water from the well and carry heavy loads and do scrubbing, and there was not much to eat."
"We've all been in the same plight," replied Matthew grimly, taking the child's arm and hurrying her over the cobbles, for he feared to be late at the gates of Paris. "But surely the good times will be coming soon when the King will enjoy his own again."
"Do you think so?" asked Sybil wistfully. "And that I shall ever go home? Home! I don't know where it is now."
"I suppose your house was taken by Parliament," said Matthew, "like mine. Still, I expect when the King has defeated Lord Essex and General Cromwell—the traitors!—we shall get all our property back."
"And good rewards too, perhaps," replied the child, "for serving him so faithfully."
"I don't look for reward," said Matthew. He thought this was a mean way of looking at the situation. "I regard myself as a soldier, and so you must, too," he added firmly. "You must be obedient and do as I tell you. Remember, as soon as we have left Paris—for here we are not noticed at all—I shall treat you as if you were my little mistress and I your serving-man. My name is supposed to be Paul Dubois, it is the name my father used, and I am apprenticed to a maker of brass instruments."
He then explained to Sybil his errand, the purchase of trumpets, similar to the model made by M. Morand, for the French King's Trumpeters. He did not, however, tell Sybil about the emblem of the White Swan; he thought her too young to be entrusted with this secret, though she seemed serious enough.
A hasty walk, which had brought the colour into Sybil's cheeks, that had been so pale, and the sparkle into her eyes, brought them to the gate and there, as the Queen had promised Captain Jaye, was a youth with a stout bay horse, waiting by the roadside inn that, at that early hour of the morning, was almost deserted. Only a few peasants were bringing in baskets of eggs and chickens, and a couple of serving-men were sweeping the floor and taking glasses of sour wine to the farmer's men.
The wind was slight but chill, the sky a curdle of grey clouds that were rapidly obscuring the rising sun; the few trees that grew either side the high road showed as yet but little leaf; it was an empty, gloomy scene.
After glancing cautiously about, Matthew sauntered up to the young ostler who was leading the bay horse and showed him the Swan in the palm of his glove.
The French boy at once produced a similar emblem from his pocket and whispered:
"The other horse is in the stable, being got ready."
"I shall only require one," said Matthew; "ray father is not able to come. An accident, you understand. But I am taking this young gentlewoman with me." Seeing the look of astonishment on the stable boy's face, he added: "I have my reasons. If you report this to the lady we both know of, assure her as much."
"You'll need another saddle then, and a pillion," said the youth. "And your bags on one horse?"
"Yes, I suppose that can be done?"
"Oh, certainly, they keep everything at the post house. Wait here, sir, I shall not be a moment."
This conversation passed in French and attracted no attention from either the few people gathered round the inn or the yawning guards at the gate.
Matthew's passport, made out to Paul Dubois, was in good order. Queen Henrietta Maria had no difficulty in obtaining these passports for her followers through the agency of her brother, King Louis.
Sybil Quare's passport was also produced; she had had it in readiness for some weeks. Passports for English people to return to their own country were usually granted without delay, the French authorities being glad to be rid of so many useless and penniless exiles.
So the saddle was soon changed on the bay horse. Matthew mounted, Sybil was put up pillion behind him, and then the saddlebags set in place. Then they said Good-bye to Jean, who went home.
"We shan't be able to go far or fast with this load," smiled Matthew, although the animal was a massive fellow specially kept for heavy work.
So they set off' through the chill, fresh morning, down the long French road towards the first post station on the way to the coast.
Although they were surrounded by so many troubles and perils, neither Matthew nor Sybil could help feeling pleased at the thought of returning to England. Besides, it was good to feel the open road before them and to know that they were free and on an adventure that would be for the good of their country.
Matthew talked to Sybil about the war that had been dividing England for three years, since the King had set up his standard at Nottingham.
"The rebels," said Sybil, "seem stronger than His Majesty's forces, do they not?"
But Matthew would not have that.
"Edgehill," he declared stoutly, "was more a victory than a defeat. The King got as far as Brentford, on his way to London."
"Why did he turn back?"
"Because the Parliament is very strong in London," admitted Matthew. "You know that the King has made Oxford the capital?"
"Are you going to Oxford?" asked Sybil, holding tightly to Matthew's belt as the bay horse trotted along.
"Maybe; I must go to London, first, to get my instructions."
Matthew then asked the little girl about her father, who had been killed with her brother while fighting near Reading, and about her home that had been, she had said, near Rochester. He thought that it would comfort her to talk of these things, but Sybil set her lips tightly and would not speak either of her father or of her home.
"What will you do when you reach England?" she asked. "Why go to London, that is in the hands of the rebels?"
"To learn where the King is. Now that the winter is over he may have left Oxford and be with the army—in the North, perhaps, for the Scots may give him help."
"London is better for me, too," said the little girl gravely.
"From there I can easily get down to Rochester, where my Uncle and Aunt Sayes live. Besides, I have relations in London, too."
"Oh, I shall be able to look after you quite well," said Matthew light-heartedly. "The King still has many friends in London, and no one ever suspects the man Lo whom I am sent ..."
"The brass instrument maker?" asked Sybil.
"I did not tell you that, did I?"
"I heard what was being said in the shop of M. Morand. Besides, is not that a trumpet strapped on your saddlebags?"
Matthew laughed.
"Yes, and a very beautiful and special trumpet. But there are several brass instrument makers in London, and I shall not let you know the name of the one I am travelling to..."
"Why?" asked Sybil, tugging at his belt.
"Because," said Matthew, "the less you know the better it will be for you."
The sun strengthened as they travelled on and as faint gold rested on the landscape, on the little farms and wayside cottages, on the peasants with their sheep and pigs, on the poplar trees covered with tiny bright leaves, and on the long, flat distant horizons.
Matthew was not thinking of this country through which they passed, but of England, that he rarely saw in these days; for his family had been ruined and their estates lost after Edgehill, while his father had been chosen by the King to go with the Queen to France when she fled there for help. And since then it had been nothing but this spying work of which he was so tired....
"What are you thinking of?" asked Sybil, tugging at his belt again.
"That you are very inquisitive," he smiled, and, taking from his pocket a winter apple given him by Mme. Morand, he handed it to her over his shoulder. Sybil munched in silence.
THE journey to the coast proceeded smoothly. Matthew had a list of the inns where they were to change horses and rest, and at each one of these he found a man who recognized the sign of the White Swan. Sometimes it would be the ostler who would attract his attention, sometimes the landlord, sometimes a serving-man in the inn itself.
The travellers did not seem to be followed; indeed, no one took any notice of them.
Matthew succeeded, during the two nights they spent on the road, in procuring a comfortable room for, the little girl, and himself slept in the servants' quarters, for he was supposed to be merely her paid escort.
So far the adventure seemed almost surprisingly-easy. As he had thought, the presence of Sybil seemed to allay any possible suspicion of those whom he met on the road or at the inns.
Sybil herself was obedient and docile, though rather silent and not, the boy thought, too friendly. But that, no doubt, could be explained by her sad circumstances. Had she not lost her parents and all her friends, and was she not travelling to relations of whom she knew very little? To a country where all her own property had been ruined—she said her father had lent all he possessed to the King—and where she would be still living on charity?
It was with a feeling of triumph that Matthew arrived at Calais. The journey had been done as the Queen had instructed, the weather had been fair, he had not spent as much as had been allowed, and he had, comfortingly safe in the pouch by his side, the diamonds and the emeralds that were to pay the troops of King Charles.
They had risen early and with a fresh horse had covered the last stage quickly, though when they arrived at the port they found the English packet in the harbour ready to sail.
"A fine augury," exclaimed Matthew. "Look how calm the sea is—and the wind fair for England!"
"I am glad indeed," said Sybil primly, "for when I came over I was very ill."
"Well, you won't be ill this time," replied the boy cheerfully. "It will be like crossing a mill-pond. Let us go on board at once and I will find a comfortable cabin for you."
He went on board The Windflower: this packet was well known to the Royalists: although the Captain, John Hitchcock, kept up the appearance of being not only neutral but inclined to the Parliamentary side, he was in truth and in secret an ardent supporter of King Charles. It was, of course, much more convenient for him to disavow his principles and to continue running the packet to and from Calais without interference from the Parliamentary troops. A stout, red-faced man of middle-age, with a candid and cheerful manner, he had proved an ideal go-between, being, underneath his air of bluffness, shrewd and resourceful. He had contrived to disarm all suspicion and to smuggle to and fro with great success not only messages between the exiles in Paris and their friends in England, but agents and spies in the service of the Queen.
Matthew had crossed by The Windflower before, and the captain, though affecting not to know him when he stepped on board, soon found an opportunity of speaking to him privately.
"I see you have a young gentlewoman with you," he said. "And where is your father? I was told to expect him."
"I have something more important than the young gentlewoman," replied Matthew with a smile. "I've got pretty important papers. And something a bit more valuable than papers. You understand," he added, for he knew that he could completely trust Captain Hitchcock. "The little girl came and asked my escort at the last moment. I really think she will help rather than hinder my plans. As for my father—he is ill and could not come."
"You're still supposed to be Paul Dubois, the instrument maker's apprentice?" asked the captain.
"Oh, yes. You will hear me speak in French to the young gentlewoman. I am not supposed to know more than a few words of English."
Matthew then briefly told the captain Sybil Quare's history and the man agreed that it was a charity and also no doubt helpful to take the poor child from Paris to her people.
Then Matthew eagerly asked the news—it trickled through with such exasperating slowness to Paris—what had happened lately?
The captain shook his head; there was nothing good to report. Skirmishes here, scuffles there, houses besieged, roadside affrays. The King still had his headquarters at Oxford, but was probably with the army now.
"It can't be said, sir, that the royal cause is going well. This General Cromwell is a mighty man of war, there's no doubt of that, and his new regiment, the Ironsides, are rightly named. But, of course, the King's great trouble is money. If he could pay his men better and quicker he could have more of them. There's no denying there's many who serve the side that pays them best."
"Well," said Matthew sternly, "I shouldn't be surprised if what I've got wouldn't help that perplexity."
"You carry money?" asked Hitchcock, lowering his voice cautiously.
"The equivalent of money," replied Matthew. "But don't let's be seen talking together any more. Give your best cabin to the young gentlewoman. Poor child, she has been very downcast on the journey and seems to have a good deal of courage."
And he thought with compassion of the little girl who had been no trouble at all to him on the journey from Paris to the coast and whose sole worldly possessions were the little case that she kept so tightly clasped and the gold piece that she had under his instructions sewn into her bodice.
The passage was indeed smooth; the sails of The Windflower were set to catch a favourable breeze and the packet sped through placid waves towards the white cliffs of England.
The air was chill but there was a scent of spring in it and a few beams of pale sunshine now and then dispersed the haze of grey clouds that overhung the sea.
Sybil, who, bravely as she had borne up on the journey, was tired, was soon asleep in the comfortable cabin the Captain provided for his more delicate passengers and that was to-day entirely at her disposal since there were no other ladies travelling.
After he had seen her asleep in her bunk, and covered her over with the rug, Matthew went on deck and took a keen look at his fellow passengers.
Not many were crossing to-day, but The Windflower did not depend upon its passenger service.
It took the mails and a cargo, laces, brandy, silks, and wines from France, woollen and steel goods from England.
Matthew, whose powers of observation were already well-trained, at once put down such of the men as he could see grouped about on the deck as ordinary honest merchants and their assistants travelling upon the business that continued briskly between the two countries despite the civil war in England.
But there was one man who was different from the others and, though the boy did not consider that he looked suspicious, he kept him under his scrutiny....
This man appeared to be an Italian; his long, yellow, melancholy face was framed with black hair, and dark curling moustachios decorated his upper lip.
He was dressed shabbily in what might have been someone else's discarded finery—a rough tawny velvet doublet, a soiled lace collar.
Slung around his neck by a stout leather strap was a hurdy-gurdy, a beautiful little instrument of shining wood, finely inlaid with ivory and ebony. Upon his shoulder perched a monkey, shivering in the Channel winds despite his warm red coat.
Matthew had often seen these foreigners, Italians or Savoyards, wandering about England trying to pick up a living by showing their monkeys and their tricks, and playing queer little tunes on the instruments they used so skilfully. Why they left their own country on these doubtful adventures the boy did not know, but these queer, swarthy, often amusing fellows always fascinated him. He remembered when he was a child at Sitherhow Manor, looking from an upper window and seeing a troupe of these vagabonds below, a Jack-in-the-Green, a dancing bear, a child who walked upon a tight-rope slung between two of the windows across the courtyard.
He felt suddenly sad himself because the memory was so strong; his mother had been there, he had not known how happy he was at the time. Now it all seemed so very long ago, because everything to do with that life had been swept away.
He thought of the child sleeping below and how it must be sadder for her than it was for him; she was so much younger than he was and therefore so much nearer her loss. Besides, she was a girl and did not enjoy excitement and adventure like he did. At least he could fill his life by serving the King, while she had nothing to do but sit about and mope.
Moved by these old memories, he approached the man and asked him in French his errand. The fellow, who seemed pleased to be spoken to, answered at once and eagerly.
"But I am going to England, that is so great a country. I have to show my little Nicko and play my tunes and I shall get money."
"I wouldn't count upon that now," replied Matthew. "You know that we have a war. Families are fighting against families, brother against brother. The King can hardly hold his own against the rebels."
The Italian shook his head with a sad smile and spread his hands in a foreign gesture.
"In my country there is war too, always fights, and one does not know what about."
He added that his wife and children had been left behind with his parents while he went abroad to make his living. And he gave some rambling explanation of the poorness of the crop at home and the hopelessness of obtaining a livelihood in Calabria, the country, he declared, he came from. But Matthew shrewdly suspected that the man was lazy and restless, like most of his kind, and preferred this gipsy existence to honest work.
They sat together on the deck, a curiously assorted couple—the robust, fair, handsome English boy in his trim plain serving-man's attire, and the dark-haired foreigner in his fantastic faded finery. The monkey, a friendly, wistful little beast leapt on to Matthew's shoulder and caressed the finger that he laughingly gave into its tiny black clasp.
All this while, however, the boy was not off his guard and kept his right hand, as if carelessly, thrust into his belt where the pouch that held the diamonds was hooked on.
"I am French," he said. "Paul Dubois. I am learning the brass instrument maker's profession."
And with an air of frankness he told the Italian his errand in London. He thought that if there were any spies on board and they chanced to overhear him they would be put off by listening to this recital seemingly so candid.
The Italian shrugged his shoulders.
"You are lucky," he said, "to have a good profession and good pay. Who would be the young gentlewoman I saw you with when you came on board? Is she your sister?"
"You flatter me," replied Matthew. "She is a poor English exile who has lost her father in a skirmish and her mother in Paris, from a broken heart, as I suppose, and I am taking her home to her relatives."
"I thought," replied the Italian coolly, "that she seemed of a superior station to you. But you yourself, sir, although you have the servant's attire have the air of a gentleman."
Matthew was not too pleased at this, he felt he had been too careless and he had tried so hard to speak the rough and ready French of the Paris streets that he had picked up at M. Morand's shop.
To distract the Italian's attention from this subject he produced the card of Mr. Henry Knibbs, read it over and pretended not to know where the address given on it was.
"I shall be as strange as you in England," he said. "I have been there before, but I cannot remember very much about it. I attended my master on a business journey and we were only in England a few days."
"I think," said the Italian, "that you carry a trumpet among your baggage," and he pointed to the case strapped on top of the saddlebags that Matthew kept near him.
"Yes, indeed. It is a model—the King of France is going to have some made like that for his trumpeters. My master, M. Morand, is not too proud to send for trumpets to Mr. Knibbs, who is the most famous brass instrument maker in the world, to ask if he can improve on this model in executing the French King's commission."
The Italian shrugged as if he were not interested in the subject.
"The trumpet is a harsh and ugly instrument," he said. "Now, if you would hear real music, listen to this."
He turned the handle of his hurdy-gurdy and began to sing, in a low pleading chant.
Such sailors as were not engaged in watching and adjusting the sails, or working on the deck, and the few humble passengers soon gathered round the Italian, pleased at this diversion that promised to shorten the monotony of the voyage.
Matthew felt soothed. He was delighted to be returning to England. As they proceeded, the clouds began to disappear, blue sky showed overhead, the white wings of the seagulls flashed brilliantly over the water, which was now a clear green and flecked with a white crest of foam.
As he played and sang—and his voice was deep and pleasant—the Italian became enthusiastic and animated, a different man from the melancholy creature who had sat huddled against the deck rail.
Suddenly he stopped and looked at Matthew.
"Can you sing, sir? As a musician you should be able to."
"Only a little," replied Matthew.
"The trumpet! You play the trumpet?"
"Yes, I play that, but we can hardly have a duetto between the trumpet and the hurdy-gurdy and our two voices," laughed the boy.
This brief conversation had passed in French and the sailor standing beside Matthew asked him what it meant in plain English.
Affecting to speak only a few broken words of his own language, Matthew explained. Upon which the passengers were all for a duetto between the trumpet and the hurdy-gurdy. Matthew still refused.
"The thing," he declared, "is fantastical."
But he promised to play a fanfare, and taking the trumpet out of its case stood up and blew with great accuracy the fanfare usually blown when the King of France raised his glass to drink the health of some distinguished guest.
Matthew had a real taste and talent for music and had learnt a good deal while he had been with M. Morand, and his performance drew forth a round of applause from the idlers gathered on the newly scrubbed deck of The Windflower.
It also roused Sybil Quare; Matthew could not help laughing when he saw her prim figure and alarmed face appear above the rude rails that marked off the ladder that led down to the cabin.
Then he was ashamed of his mirth, for the child looked alarmed.
"Of course," he said, "you did not know that I could play the trumpet, did you, mademoiselle" (he still spoke in French). "Our good friend here persuaded me to try my skill. If you are rested, perhaps you will come and listen to his tunes."
Sybil seemed at first alarmed and offended, then shyly pleased. She came cautiously to the taffrail where the Italian and Matthew sat, surrounded by the group of idling passengers.
The Italian with an elaborate bow doffed his hat, that was adorned with a rather draggled red and orange feather, and at once proceeded to play a tune for the young "Signorina."
But Sybil was tired. The sea air, she declared, made her feel drowsy. She did not want to go below again where it was stuffy, but she would like to rest on the deck.
At this there were several eager hands willing to oblige the little girl, and some small bales were arranged against a coil of rope for her to rest upon. She declared then that the wind was blowing upon her somewhat strongly and asked Matthew if he would sit beside her and shelter her.
"You are becoming peevish and whimsical," said the boy indulgently, but he obeyed and sat down with the child beside him.
Meanwhile, the Italian, whose movements became brisker and whose bilious-looking complexion was now flushed, continued to play his merry Neapolitan songs and presently got up and began to execute a fantastic little dance upon the deck.
Presently Sybil, who seemed to be in an ill mood, complained that she could not rest with so much noise going on and rose rather abruptly, wrapping her cloak closely round her, and went below.
Matthew had been distracted by the antics of the Italian and lulled into a sense of security by both the place and the company. He had decided that he need not fear any evil while he was on board The Windflower and need only sharpen his wits again when he arrived at Dover.
It was, therefore, with an indescribable pang of horror that, putting his hand mechanically to his side, he found the pouch in which were the diamonds and emeralds had disappeared.
The boy had the presence of mind to conceal his alarm, and in order to cover his agitation applauded the Italian's antics loudly.
Desperate questions were darting through his mind. Was it possible that he had dropped the pouch, securely as he had strapped it on? Had he taken it off and left it in the cabin? No, surely, he had been so desperately careful to keep it always by his side.
Who had approached him near enough to steal it?
He glanced round all the company. Everyone who had been there from the first was there still. Besides, the very thought was crazy—no one had been near enough.
"I must, after all," he said to himself, "have left it in the cabin."
And deeply ashamed of his own carelessness and forgetfulness, and profoundly shaken by this misfortune, Matthew muttered some excuse about getting his purse to pay the Italian for his music and went down to the cabin allotted to Sybil Quare.
He had trained himself to be light-footed, to make no sound of his approach, so as he came along unheard he opened the cabin door and surprised Sybil, who was not, as he had expected, resting in her bunk, but leaning on it and struggling with the porthole that she was endeavouring to force open.
Matthew thought immediately that this was a strange thing for the little girl to be doing for she had complained of the high wind upon the deck. But his attention was almost immediately distracted by the sight of his pouch that contained the precious diamonds lying upon the end of the bunk.
He sprang forward, snatched up his treasure, and asked sternly:
"Where did you find this, Sybil?"
She looked at him and seemed dazed, almost confused.
"I was trying to get the window open, it was so hot in here," she said.
"You found it too windy on the deck, however," he countered. "It seems to me you are a whimsical young gentlewoman. I do not think the porthole opens. Anyhow, what is important is this."
And with nervous fingers and great gasps of relief that he could not control, Matthew firmly buckled the precious pouch on to his belt again. Then he pulled the strings eagerly and looked inside. The diamonds in their little bags of chamois leather and the emerald cross in its wooden case were safe.
"You seem very agitated," said Sybil Quare, sitting on the edge of her bunk, clasping her hands round her knees. "Why are you so concerned about that pouch?"
"It has all our travelling money in it," said Matthew briefly. "Where did you find it?"
"Find it? I didn't find it anywhere! It was down here on the bunk, I suppose, when I came down. I don't know."
She gave him a blank childish stare, then yawned.
"You're sure you didn't pick it up on the deck, Sybil?"
"No, I'm quite sure I didn't pick it up on the deck. Anyhow, hadn't you better lower your voice? You're talking English, you know, and you're supposed to be French. You're also talking," said Sybil with a mischievous smile, "as if we were equals. And you know, sir, that you are supposed to be my servant."
It was Matthew's turn to flush. He felt truly agitated, also uneasy. He could have sworn he had not left the bag in the cabin. How could he have been so unutterably careless, even though he had been interested in listening to the singing of the Italian and in watching his antics?
He remembered how Sybil had sat close to him on the deck, pretending fatigue and asking him to shelter her from the wind. Was it possible that she had neatly unhooked the precious pouch, hidden it in her cloak and taken it downstairs?
Of course it was not possible! How could he think such a thing of her! Why, she was a child, she could not possibly have been capable of such a prank. Besides, what would the object of it have been?
Matthew felt ashamed of himself, both of his carelessness and of his suspicion. He looked remorsefully at Sybil, who had now curled herself up on the bunk and fallen asleep, her hands clasped under her cheek, her hood drawn round her dark hair, her cloak over her hunched-up limbs.
Matthew spread the rude coverlet over her and went again on deck.
The incident had sobered him; he avoided the Italian, who was still playing to the group of idle passengers, and going to the taffrail stared down at the sea racing in white foam-topped waves from the sides of the boat.
When he Looked ahead he could see the line of the white chalk cliffs of England becoming gradually vivid through the mist, and his heart thrilled with real love for the beautiful, and now distressed country that was his own, and with a passionate devotion towards his King whom he and his father had served to the last penny in their possession and were now willing to serve to the last drop of blood in their bodies.
For the rest of the voyage Matthew kept his hand on his pouch; so nervous was he now about his charge that he did not feel safe unless his fingers were actually upon the strap that fastened the treasures to his belt.
He did not rouse Sybil until they were tacking into the harbour under the guidance of the pilot who had come aboard.
Then he went down and told her that this part at least of their journey was ended.
"You will be glad, won't you, Mistress Sybil, to be in England again!"
The child looked despondent as she rubbed her eyes sleepily, and said that one place was much the same as another to her now.
"I hope the people to whom I am going will be kind to me," she added apprehensively.
"Why, surely, Mistress Sybil, you have no reason to fear that. Come on deck now and let us be some of the first to go ashore. We have to find horses."
"Are you going to London first?" asked Sybil.
Matthew said: "Yes. I told you that. How you forget! My business is very important. Once we are in London I can put you in safe hands and then take you to your people in Kent."
This seemed to suit the child very well. She was by no means in a hurry, she said, to seek out these new relations, of whom she seemed in some dread.
The two went on deck and stood looking at the little town huddled under the sweeping cliffs and the mighty castle reared up grey against the pale spring sky with the changing clouds. They felt rather forlorn and lonely in the hurrying crowds who took no notice of them.
Matthew's chief concern was still the pouch, and, as he instructed one of the sailors to take the saddlebags and valise ashore, he lost sight for a moment of Sybil. He was surprised when he went to find her to discover her talking to the Italian and, he could have sworn, in English. Yet he might again have been mistaken, for by the time he had reached the couple they were certainly talking in French.
"What do you want to speak to that fellow for, Sybil? He is a foreigner and almost a beggar."
"I was sorry for him," replied the girl simply. "I wish I had some money to give him but as you know I have nothing but my gold piece."
There was some bustle and confusion at the "Warden's Arms." The day was drawing in and everyone was in a hurry to be away on the London road save those few who were spending the night at Dover to see about the unloading and disposing of their cargoes.
Matthew found no difficulty, however, in discovering the Royalist agent. An old man was seated in a cottage next to the inn cobbling shoes. He looked at Matthew most intently every time he passed, so that the boy's attention was attracted to him.
Going up to him, Matthew said:
"One of my boots needs repairing. The heel came loose during my travels. Can you do this for me?"
"Assuredly, sir," replied the old man, putting his small hammer into his leather apron. "You are travelling to London on urgent business, perhaps."
"Well, it's my own business," replied the boy, "and I suppose everyone thinks his own affairs are urgent."
"Your own business and not the King's?" said the old man in a whisper, and putting his hand into the pocket of his leather apron he brought out a small ivory Swan that he placed on the carpenter's bench.
Matthew instantly produced from his pocket his emblem of the White Swan; so far the conversation had been in a whisper and in English, but he now spoke aloud and in French:
"I am Paul Dubois, I am travelling on the business of a brass instrument maker. It is an important matter—it is a question of ordering trumpets for the King of France's trumpeters."
While he was speaking, the cobbler, who was affecting to bend over the foot he had placed on the bench and examine the shoe, was whispering:
"Your horse, and it is a good one, is in the charge of a boy in a green doublet. You will find it waiting in the inn yard."
Matthew was impressed, as he had been before, by the efficiency of the Royalist service. There were so many willing hands and hearts to help King Charles that there was a perfect chain of command between his headquarters and Paris: and though the rebels were vigilant and skilful too, they were very seldom able to intercept the messages and the agents who went to and fro.
"Never," thought the boy, "will the Parliament be able to subdue the whole country while there are so many loyalists working for the King."
His hopes rose and he tried to glean some news from the travellers in the inn as he mingled with them again. There was, as Captain Hitchcock had told him, nothing very good to relate. Affairs were almost at a standstill, but with the approach of spring it was hoped that the King would be able to make a decisive action, and again with a thrill of pride Matthew heard the opinion passed round that King Charles's greatest need was money.
He soon found the boy in the green jerkin, who had a stout saddle horse ready for him. This had to be arranged for a pillion.
When all was complete Matthew went to look for Sybil, whom he had left in the inn parlour under charge of the landlady, who showed a motherly concern for the little traveller.
THEY were soon on their way and travelling along the London Road. There would be time, Matthew reckoned, before the dark overtook them, for them to complete the first stage, that was a short one—they might reach Barham or perhaps Bridge, though they must travel easily.
But he had not reckoned on anyone accompanying him and he was rather disagreeably surprised to hear hoofs behind them, and on looking back to see a fantastic figure waving to them.
"It is the Italian!" he exclaimed, and even as he looked back the foreigner had overtaken them, talking excitedly in French about his hopes of making a fortune in England—perhaps at Oxford, where the court was.
He looked an odd, fantastic figure to be riding on horseback, with his tall hat with the broken feather on his head, the monkey on his shoulder, and his hurdy-gurdy slung on his back, and hired spurs stuck on to his worn shoes.
"You have a very good mount," remarked Matthew. "I thought you would have travelled to London by the stage waggon."
But the mountebank replied with a grin that it paid him to hire a good horse.
"I will accompany you," he said, "and amuse the way now and then with a song."
"I'm afraid," said Matthew briefly, "I have no time for that. As I told you, it is necessary that I should get quickly to London and transact my business with Mr. Knibbs."
"Oh, ho, is the King of France in such a hurry for his new trumpets?" said the Italian. "You will shake the little gentlewoman to pieces, riding so fast."
"Yes, indeed," put in Sybil, "I am getting very bumped about. I don't see why, Paul, you should rise so fast. Did you say this was to be a short stage? Besides, it is getting dark."
Matthew was recalled to the fact that he was travelling as Sybil's servant, and therefore bound to listen to her wishes; had he been alone he would have made Canterbury in one stage, by riding through the night.
This vexed him. He thought that it was tiresome of her to assert her authority in the presence of the Italian. She was really a rather tiresome little girl; perhaps, after all, he would have done better to have come alone.
"You know, mademoiselle," he returned, "that I have to get you to London as soon as possible, for your relatives are anxiously waiting for you."
And glancing over his shoulder he gave Sybil Quare a look that he intended to convey a need for her to be discreet.
The child, however, affected not to understand, and gripping Matthew's belt tightly declared that she was being bruised all over when he rode so fast.
Matthew, thereupon, slackened his pace and so had to endure the company of the Italian, who rode beside him chattering in French with snatches of his native language.
The road was lonely and the twilight thickening, and Matthew rather wished that he had not been so eager, but had spent the night in Dover. Yet obviously he had been expected to press on, for the horse had been waiting for him, and he did not wish to be more tardy than he was supposed to be.
He longed for the journey to be over, greatly as he had desired this adventure. He knew he would be glad when he found himself in Mr. Knibbs's shop in St. Paul's Churchyard and there either handed the jewels over to the Royalist agent or was escorted himself to the King's camp, wherever that might be, or to Oxford, if His Majesty had returned to the city that was now his capital.
A diversion to his excited thought was caused by the monkey that suddenly jumped on his shoulder, startling him and causing him to rein in the horse abruptly.
"You should keep the little fellow chained!" he exclaimed. "I thought he was fastened to your wrist."
The Italian only laughed, and Sybil declared that the monkey amused her, then broke off, to exclaim suddenly:
"We are being followed!"
Matthew turned his head quickly and listened. They had just passed round a sharp bend in the road and a turnpike glimmered whitely before them in the dusk.
"What do you mean—followed?" asked the boy. "It is merely that there are other travellers on the road."
"Oh, indeed?" said Sybil, still speaking in French, "you know quite well that you are on a dangerous mission and there might be somebody after you!"
'"I don't see why you should think that," muttered Matthew, still staring over his shoulder.
But he felt a little uneasy himself, while the Italian was swaying anxiously on his saddle as if convulsed with alarm.
"What have you to fear, anyhow?" exclaimed Matthew, glancing at him. "You will not be noticed by anyone."
Then a bold thought occurred to him. Supposing a posse of Parliamentary soldiers or spies were to set upon him and try to rob him of the bag, would it not be a good idea to pass it to the Italian to hold until the skirmish was over and he was arrested, so that, at the very worst, the jewels were saved?
Before he could decide about this scheme, the pursuers, for so indeed they proved to be, had come round the bend of the road. They were four horsemen in the leather jerkins and steel breastplates of the Parliamentary Army, riding heavy warrior steeds.
"Who has betrayed me?" thought Matthew. "Or have I, in some way, betrayed myself?"
He saw that flight was useless and would be both foolish and dangerous, so he drew in his horse, the Italian doing likewise, and proceeded quietly as if in no way disturbed by the approach of the four soldiers.
These, however, surrounded him and the leader bade him halt.
Matthew obeyed and with a look of surprise asked in French what the matter might be.
He produced his credentials, which the Puritan scanned earnestly and with difficulty in the fading light. Matthew then showed his French passport, the trade card of Mr. Knibbs, the instructions from M. Morand. He gave the history of Sybil, who sat mutely on the pillion hugging the monkey, whose small wrinkled face gazed anxiously out of the dusk.
Matthew's heart beat fast during this ordeal; all his papers were certainly in good order, there was no excuse for the Parliamentarians to stop him, but supposing that, not content with searching his saddlebags and Sybil's valise that contained nothing suspicious whatever, they should think of looking at his pouch? And then he thought how imprudent he had been in not finding a safer place to put the jewels. They were so bulky that it was difficult to conceal them anywhere about his person, and his father had often told him that to carry something valuable carelessly in a pouch or purse was the safest way, since few thought of looking in an obvious place.
The Italian remained close beside Sybil and Matthew while this was going on, still chattering in French and a few sentences of his own language. He too was detained, but his papers appeared to be in order, and he was told, abruptly enough, to be upon his way and to remember that the country was in no condition to be supporting beggars or vagabonds. If he had not had a good letter of recommendation from the London Resident of the Duke of Savoy he would not have been allowed to proceed, the sergeant in charge of the men told him.
"Well," said Matthew, "why don't you go now you're free?"
He was irritated at seeing the Italian still remaining on the road, riding his horse up and down and ejaculating softly to himself under his breath.
"May I proceed, too, sir?" he asked the grim-faced sergeant, trying to make his face expressionless of everything except alarm and to give his whole air a stupid, bewildered appearance.
"Yes, you may go," said the Puritan, but still suspiciously. "It seems we have been misinformed," he added over his shoulder to his three men. "We were told to look out for a Royalist spy who had letters in his saddlebags. But it should have been an older man than you—not a boy and a girl, but a man and a boy."
He raised his gauntletted hand and Matthew, breathing more easily, proceeded.
They had lost nearly half an hour over this adventure, for the soldiers had been slow and careful, and Matthew said that they must put up at the first post they came to; the same horse would be fresh enough to take them on in the morning.
The boy felt this had been a near escape and he pulled off his hat and mopped his forehead on which the sweat lay thick, as the stern figures of the Puritans in their steel and leather on their stout grey horses trotted away into the distance, towards Dover.
Instinctively he put his hand to his side. His weapon—the short sword—was in its place, concealed under his cloak. The pouch had once again disappeared.
He turned swiftly and saw Sybil's small, pale face staring at him through the dusk, the monkey crouching beside her.
"It is you! It must be you! You have taken my pouch!" he cried. "Yes, you loosened it off the belt while I was talking to those men! Nothing could have been easier! What have you done with it? And who are you?" he demanded.
"I know nothing of the pouch," whispered the child obstinately. "I do not know why you are behaving so unkindly. I wish I had travelled alone."
"I wish you had, too," cried Matthew in despair. "Is it possible that you are a spy? You, a child of your age!"
'"I'm nearly as old as you are," replied Sybil with dignity, but pulling at her blue scarf nervously. "I don't admit to being a spy or anything of that kind. And as for your wretched old purse, it has probably fallen off in the road somewhere."
"It could not have fallen off, my belt is firmly strapped on and the purse was fastened to it!"
"I don't know anything about it," repeated Sybil. Then she called to the Italian who was still close to them. "Here. Take your monkey!" and tossed the little animal towards him.
The Italian caught the monkey skilfully and with a shouted "Thank you" was suddenly hastening away, pricking his horse's side with vehement movements.
Then the truth came in a flash to Matthew Jaye.
Sybil had tossed his pouch to the Italian with the monkey. She had fastened the purse to the animal by means of the little blue-silk scarf she had taken from her neck. The whole trick was very cleverly done and Matthew had been almost robbed under his nose a second time.
But he was too quick. He rode alongside the foreigner and made a snatch at the monkey and its precious burden.
There was a brief scuffle on the road. With deep anger Matthew felt Sybil tugging at his arm and trying to disable him. He shook her off, not too gently.
The Italian now had made no disguise of his intention. He had dropped all his foreign affectations, crying through his teeth:
"Speak in plain English, for you are as English as I am. Let me go and I will spare your life."
"Spare my life!" cried Matthew. "What do you mean?"
"Just this," said the Italian, who had the boy gripped by the wrist, while Sybil had seized the reins of the horse they rode. "If I was to ride up after yon soldiery you would be hanged from the nearest tree as a spy. We have no mercy with such scoundrels. But hand over without more demur this pouch of jewels—for I know full well what it contains—and I will let you go. You may then return to Dover and the safety of Paris."
"You are a villain to suggest such a thing. I am a gentleman—Captain Jaye of Sitherhow's son. I intend to deliver these jewels into the hands of King Charles or his agent."
"Then you must fight for them," said the false Italian, now revealed as a Puritan spy.
He had tossed off his fantastic hat and flung into the ditch the elegant little hurdy-gurdy that was hampering his movements.
"We can't fight on horseback," said Matthew, very pale. "I've got this child to think of, too. She seems to be on your side. How foolish I was," he added bitterly, "to take her! But I thought she was too young to be engaged in such a business."
"Why is it more disgraceful for me to be engaged on the side of the Parliament," asked Sybil, "than for you, Matthew Jaye, to be engaged on the side of the King?"
Matthew had been waiting for his chance. Now he found it.
Distracted for a moment by the words of the little girl, the Italian had looked aside and Matthew had thrown himself upon him and using all his force rushed him out of the saddle. Then, jumping to the ground himself, he laid out the Puritan spy with a good blow that sent him to the ground unconscious. The man fell backward on the grass verge of the road and hit his head on one of the large, smooth boulders that lay among the first green leaves.
He laid out the spy with a good blow.
The boy's first action as he bent over the prostrate man was once more to recover the jewels. These he eagerly strapped again to his belt.
He then went through the Italian's pockets but there was nothing there, save a little money, English and foreign, and a passport made out in the name of Matteo Bellini.
He smiled grimly. The Puritans were as clever as the Royalists in their choice of agents and in their means of disguising their spies!
The man was still unconscious but not, the boy thought, badly hurt. He dragged him farther away from the roadside towards the ditch where his horse was now quietly grazing on the sparse spring grass, while the monkey sat pensively on the saddle, engaged in pulling open one of the saddlebags and eating the nuts he found there.
Matthew now had to look round for Sybil. She had, of course, taken the opportunity to escape, but she had been, however, held up at the turnpike. Matthew could see her ahead, a small figure on the stout post horse, waiting at the white gates that glimmered in the evening dusk.
In a second he was on the Italian's horse and in a few moments had overtaken her while the old, hunchbacked man who kept the turnpike was still grumblingly opening the gates, exclaiming peevishly his suspicions at seeing so young a traveller alone at night.
"The young lady is in my charge," said Matthew. "We had an accident and I had to stay behind to help a fellow traveller."
They passed through the turnpike in silence, but before it was shut Sybil asked:
"Where is he? What have you done with him?"
"He's in the ditch, cooling his head. He won't be able to come after us, for I've got his horse," said Matthew. "But I shall have to look after you."
The girl suddenly gave a nervous laugh.
"Why, Nicko's still here," she said.
"Yes, I had to bring him with me. He was on the saddle. But we've got other things to think of besides the monkey. Come along. I don't know who you are, but you're up to no good and I can't let you out of my sight until my business is done."
He looked at her with a good deal of anxiety. She did represent an acute problem. Even though she might be a Puritan spy she was a girl, almost a child, and he was responsible for her safety. If the tale that she had told in Paris was false, who was she, and where should he take her?
It was quite clear that he must keep her by him until he had delivered the jewels, also that he must find some place to conceal them that she knew nothing about. And she was sharp and clever.
While he was considering these things, he was surprised and dismayed to hear the little girl, who had hitherto been so courageous and cool, suddenly burst into desperate tears.
"I must go back," she sobbed. "I must go back! You've got your jewels now, why do you need to keep me any longer?"
"Because you'd set the Roundheads on me," said Matthew. "There were four here just now, as you knew. How was it," he asked curiously, "they did not know you?"
"They were strangers to me," sobbed Sybil, "I was not able to give them the sign. I thought it better to go on pretending."
Then she added desperately: "But I must go back."
And she tried to turn her horse's head to the turnpike gate again, while she cried out to the toll-gatekeeper who was now turning into his little round house again:
"There is someone hurt upon the road; won't you please come with me and attend to him?"
The man answered in a surly tone that if he was to go out in the dark looking after all the travellers who came to grief these ugly times, he'd have nothing else to do. Footpads and ruffians, he grumbled, were abroad by the score, and the only safe place for an honest man after nightfall was his own house.
With that, he went in and banged the door behind him, still grumbling.
"You'll not go back," said Matthew sternly. "The villain is quite well. And if he dies—well, that's all part of the game. He tried to kill me."
"He's my father!" cried Sybil suddenly, lifting her tear-wet face. "I can't leave him like that. We were set on doing this together, just as you and your father were set on taking the jewels. We had information in Paris. You can hear the whole of the story as soon as you like. It was cleverly thought out, but you were too quick for us. Now he's hurt, perhaps dying, and I'm going back to him!"
Matthew was dumbfounded.
He could not for a moment, quick as he usually was, think what to do. It was no concern of his whether a Puritan spy lived or died—in fact, the latter was really the better thing for his cause. It would mean one enemy less for the King.
At the' same time he was moved by the grief and courage of the child. What she said was true enough, and Matthew was cool enough in his judgment to admit it. She was working for her side as he was working for his. She and her father had been unlucky, that was all.
"Very well," he said at last, "we shall go back and see what we can do for your father."
He roused the angry toll-keeper again, paid him another fee, the gate was opened and they retraced the road. Matthew kept his hand on Sybil's bridle as well as his own. The jewels were still his foremost concern, his first care, his errand.
They soon reached the place where the Puritan Jay under a clump of budding oak saplings, his head almost in the ditch, his feet on the grass verge.
"Who is he really?" asked Matthew drily as he dismounted.
The girl had jumped from the saddle and run to her father's head, going on her knees by the ditch.
"My father? His name is Simon Quare. I did not disguise my name. You see," she said rapidly and not without pride in her own cleverness, "we came at the last minute so there was not time for you to make any inquiries. And my story was partly true. Father had lived a great deal abroad in Italy and France, and he spoke the languages, that's why he was chosen. He has been even," she added proudly, "in the King Charles's camp in disguise. And the cavaliers have thrown him money and never guessed who he was."
Matthew did not answer but he also went on his knees on the fresh young grass beside the unconscious man, and raised him up. The boy was hoping now that he had not severely injured the Puritan, although he was rather ashamed of this sentiment. He reminded himself that the King's duty came first and it was not for him to be concerning himself about strangers and enemies, especially those who were trying to prevent his delivering the Queen's jewels to the King.
But there was something touching in the way the girl tended her father. She was better supplied than he had thought; she had brandy and bandages and ointment in her little valise and she soon had forced some of the spirit between her father's lips, washed and anointed the cut upon his forehead and bound it up.
She did this rapidly and skilfully, though the dusk had now increased so that it was almost impossible to see.
Drily, and without comment, Matthew went to his horse and took down the dark lantern he carried.
He lit this from flint and tinder and set it on the ground so that the long, beautiful rays fell upon the child and her father.
"I think he will recover now," she whispered, without looking up. "You can leave us, sir, we will go our ways."
"Indeed I can't leave you," said Matthew. "You will go your ways! You'll go to the first Republican or Parliamentarian or whatever you call them—rebels is the plain word for me—and betray me and my errand."
The girl hesitated, then raised her head; her small pale face looked up at him illumined by the light from the lantern. She seemed to debate within herself for a while and then again looking down at her father said:
"And if I promise we won't—will you let us go then? You see, it is only a question of a sick man and a child!"
"Well, I don't know about that," smiled Matthew, rather grimly. "You're an exceptional child, aren't you? You must have been early trained to this work."
"It's the first time I've ever done anything like this," she said, with a quiet pride. "But I have often travelled with my father on these errands. You see, he thought like you did, that to have a little girl with him would divert suspicion."
And her smile deepened wistfully.
"You're altogether too clever for me," replied Matthew, "and I don't intend to trust you. I won't take your word."
She flushed at that.
"Well, we're both spies, aren't we?" added Matthew, roughly. "And ought to be past compliments. You know what I'm carrying, and as far as I'm concerned no one else in England does. I've got to get to Mr. Knibbs in St. Paul's Churchyard. As soon as your father's recovered a little either we've got to leave him here or you both must come with me."
"As soon as father's recovered," replied the girl boldly, "we might make a fight for it. He's older than you and stronger. You only knocked him down because you took him by surprise."
"Maybe," agreed Matthew, "I have to take a chance—like he did. Remember, I've got all his weapons—his pistol and his short sword, the dagger he had in his boot."
Simon Quare now began to regain consciousness. Groaning, he struggled up on his elbow and opened his eyes, blinking round vaguely.
With exclamations of joy his daughter put her arms round him. But he pushed her aside and, staring up at Matthew, demanded why he had returned.
"I remember perfectly clearly all that happened. Why have you come back?" he asked, with a sour smile on his haggard, yellow face.
"We came back to help you, Father. You might have died if you hadn't had attention. Nobody will do anything for travellers nowadays. There are too many accidents and murders on these dreadful roads."
"Oh," said Simon Quare, "you came back to rescue me, did you? Help me to my feet then."
Matthew did as he was asked.
The Puritan, now that he had dropped his foreign affectations, seemed quite a different person. There was something direct and simple about him, and Matthew could not help, despite himself, rather liking his bold and resourceful enemy.
At last Matthew got his little troop on the way again and through the toll-gate that the ugly, hunchbacked dwarf opened for a third time.
The boy certainly now held the whip-hand. He had not only recovered the jewels, but he had discovered the designs of Sybil and her father and disarmed the man. At the same time he reflected, as they rode cautiously through the chill shadows that the rising moon was beginning slightly to disperse, that his position was very difficult. He bitterly regretted now the impulse that had caused him to hamper himself with the little girl.
How right Mme. Morand had been! Perhaps she had suspected the truth. But that could not have been so or surely she would have given him a hint.
Matthew cast a sharp look at Simon Quare, to whom he had given the other horse and who was now recovered sufficiently to ride, though he could only proceed slowly, for the blood was soaking through the bandage his daughter had put round his head, and he drooped in the saddle like a sick man.
Sybil, of course, had asked to be allowed to ride behind her father, but this Matthew could not allow. He intended to keep the child with him as a hostage. The monkey had returned to his master and was perched mournfully on his shoulder.
A queer group we must make! Matthew thought grimly. What sort of a talc should he tell when the day came and they were observed?
It would be a perilous play of wits between him and Simon Quare!
And Sybil must not be forgotten either, the boy decided grimly. She was shrewd and clever enough although she only looked like a forlorn little girl. It was just a question of chance whom they passed first, either Roundheads or Cavaliers, for the country as far as Matthew knew was here No Man's Land. The King's troops were not far away and any skirmish, scuffle, or battle might give the advantage to one side or the other. So the travellers were as likely to meet a troop of Roundheads as a troop of Cavaliers.
If they came upon Parliamentarians first, why the game was in the hands of Simon Quare and his daughter! They had only to attract attention, tell their story, and Matthew would be arrested, the jewels taken from him, and he himself either cast into prison or what, he reflected sternly, was more likely, hanged as a spy.
If, on the other hand, a troop of Cavaliers came across them first, Matthew had only to tell his story, show the Swan and his letter of credentials to King Charles that he kept sewn up inside his doublet, and the Puritan and his daughter would be arrested and they in their turn—the boy instinctively glanced down at the little girl seated behind him—what would happen to them?
She was sagging in the saddle, as if sleeping, her head nodding on her shoulders. He felt a pang of regret. What a pity that all had turned out like this!
But he knew he need not concern himself about the safety of little Sybil. She would be treated kindly by the King's men.
But her father? These were grim times; Matthew knew the fate of a spy. Certainly Simon Quare with his clever disguise of an Italian and his almost successful attempt to steal the jewels that were going to pay the King's army would be treated with scant mercy.
And somehow Matthew did not like the thought of Sybil's father being hanged on the nearest tree.
"And yet it's foolish of me," he thought, "for that's exactly what the good man would do to me if he had the chance. And Sybil also, for all I know."
So they proceeded slowly through the chill dusk. The moon rose and silvered the tops of the trees now dusted with swelling buds. The air was sweet and it was cool and Matthew, fatigued and excited as he was, felt revived by the breezes that blew across his face.
He decided that they must not stop at the inns or post houses.
"If I stop anywhere," he thought, "no matter if I find friends, a clever man like this fellow Quare will certainly find some excuse to attract attention and betray me."
And the boy reflected that this part of the country was largely in the hands of the Republicans and if he had one ally at each inn it would be all he would have. So the inns must be avoided.
He looked up at the sky that was turning deep blue in the moonlight.
"I don't suppose," he said drily, "we can go on riding all through the night. I expect you're tired, too, Mr. Quare, aren't you?"
"Yes, my young sir," came the harsh voice of the Puritan, as his head drooped wearily on his breast, "I'm tired enough."
"Well, then, we will picket the horses somewhere and sleep on the ground."
"You're not going to an inn, then?" exclaimed the Puritan, as if disappointed.
"No, I'm not. I expect," added Matthew, "you think, Mr. Quare, that I'm very young for what I'm doing. I daresay I've made a fool of myself taking your daughter and believing in you when you pretended to be an Italian mountebank, but now I've got my wits about me."
"You've also got all the weapons," replied Mr. Quare quietly, "which is more important, young sir. Besides, I am a sick man. I doubt if I have the strength to try a fall with you!"
"I wouldn't trust your own assertion as to that," said Matthew. "From now on remember that I am on my guard. But is it clear we cannot ride to London without some rest. I propose to turn into the next copse we find and wait there for an hour or two. Then we will proceed on our way. In this fashion we will avoid all the inns and arrive at London."
"What do you intend to do when we reach London?" asked Mr. Quare. And the boy thought he detected a trace of anxiety in his voice.
Matthew had a shrewd idea as to what his actions would be when they reached the capital, but he answered:
"I can't reply to that, sir. You must leave it to me."
They soon approached a small wood that sloped down to the roadside. There was a tangle of young undergrowth breaking into leaf and then a copse of small beech trees, their trunks silvered by the spangled moonlight. There was a path through these wide enough for the horses, and Matthew led his little cavalcade a few paces along this, then dismounted, and after fastening his horse to one of the lower boughs of a beech tree he helped the wounded man and Sybil to alight.
The girl at once showed a touching anxiety about her father and Matthew turned aside uneasily as he saw her attending to the wound that he had made himself.
"How foolish of me," he said. "I must not be soft-hearted. They will think that they have sent a silly boy to undertake this difficult journey if I do not keep a hand upon myself!"
The truth was he was sorry for the girl and her father and would willingly have let them go. Yet he knew even if they promised not to denounce him he could not rely upon that. Simon Quare was obviously an astute hardened spy who would take his business seriously and probably, sick as he was, make his way a I once to the nearest rebel quarters.
"No doubt," thought Matthew, "he knows these perfectly well, and he's only waiting a chance to slip away."
He was relieved to see that Simon Quare could scarcely stand and sank down at once on his knees. He had lost a good deal of blood and it was clear that he was too dazed and giddy to walk far, even if he ventured to try and escape without his horse.
So the boy fastened up the other horse, took down his saddlebags, spread out his cloak for a covering on the ground that was thick with last year's beechmast, lit his dark lantern and by the light of it unpacked the provisions that Mine. Morand had provided for him and that were still fresh enough.
There were slices of thick cake, packets of nuts and dried fruit, a flask of red wine, another of brandy, some meat and biscuits.
When he had arranged these provisions Matthew offered some to his prisoners, who sat apart, forlorn and quiet, the girl supporting her father's throbbing head against her small shoulder.
They did not refuse the food, though Simon Quare could take nothing but a little biscuit and a drink of brandy.
"He will do well enough," said Matthew with a curtness that was intended to hide his own anxiety. "I looked at the wound—and I've seen a good many in my time—it's not very deep or serious."
"You might have killed him," said Sybil, staring at Matthew with large, dark eyes.
"Of course I might have killed him. I even tried to do so. What do you suppose?" answered the boy stoutly. "He attacked me, didn't he, and tried to rob me of what I was carrying? My own father was nearly killed in the Paris streets before we started. Perhaps you or your father know something about that?"
Simon Quare was not in a state to answer. He had slipped from his daughter's shoulder and lay now on the cloak that she had piled up as a cushion for his head.
He was either asleep or unconscious or feigning to be one or the other, but Matthew regarded him with suspicion. He was not going to trust this sly old fox for a moment.
"I don't know anything about it," whispered Sybil, "only that I do what my father tells me. And he told me to go with Mrs. Faulkner and pretend to be anything she said I was. And so I did, didn't I?" added the child with pride.
"Yes, you did, and very sly and untruthful you are for your age," said Matthew sternly.
"Well, what are you? You are pretending to be Paul Dubois, the trumpeter's apprentice, aren't you?"
"Yes, but I'm different. I am a man and in the service of the King."
"Well, I'm in the service of the Parliament and I think that's just as good," maintained Sybil stoutly. "Anyhow, it doesn't concern me—King or Parliament. I just do what my father tells me. And so, I suppose, do you."
Matthew could not answer this; it sounded like logic, though he was quite sure it was not.
The child, who had made a hearty supper on the provisions and seemed in better spirits in consequence, put her elbows on her knees that were hunched up before her and asked:
"Have you got a mother?"
"No," said Matthew drily. "I suppose you have and what you said about losing her in Paris was another falsehood?"
"No," sighed Sybil, "it is quite true. I have lost my mother, too. That's what happens when one lives in time of war, one has all these misfortunes," she commented, sagely. "Father was a musician," she added. "That's why he goes about with a hurdy-gurdy and sings. You see, he knows music very well. That's rather strange, isn't it, that you should be a musician, too?"
"I don't suppose it's so strange," said Matthew, with a touch of disdain. "Your father was set on to me because he was a musician and because I was travelling as one. You see, it gave him a good excuse to talk to me."
"I think there must have been better days," mused Sybil, "though I can hardly remember them. We had a pleasant house at Highgate, and father used to play the organ at a church and give lessons. But he was always mingling in these great affairs and he was one of the first to fight against the King."
"Don't tell me all these things," said Matthew, who began to feel drowsy after the excitement of the day and the good meal. "Because you know what I think of you, and that is that you are a couple of traitors. Yes, rebels and traitors. So, phrase, Mistress Sybil, keep yourself to yourself."
"What do you intend to do with us?" asked the child, helping him to pack up what remained of the provisions into the saddlebags.
"That's my affair. You can be quite sure dial I shall keep my eye on you until we reach London at least. My duty is to get to Mr. Knibbs in St. Paul's Churchyard."
"And give him the jewels," jeered Sybil with a smile.
"You're not supposed to know anything about the jewels," retorted Matthew with a touch of anger.
"I do, though, don't I?" said Sybil, "and I nearly got them, too."
And she added with mischievous satisfaction, "And when you came upon me on The Windflower I was trying to get the porthole open. If I had been a little stronger I would have had the jewels in the sea before you found me."
"Of course, I understand that," answered Matthew, who was becoming more and more ruffled.
"You should not remind me of these things. You stole the jewels while your father distracted me with all that nonsense with the monkey and the hurdy-gurdy. So you meant to throw them away? I suppose you had some idea what they are worth?"
"Of course," admitted Sybil gravely, "that's why I wanted to throw them away. Those sweetmeats you had were rather good; have you any more?"
She licked her fingers reflectively.
"No, I've not," said Matthew, who thought she was taking the whole matter far too lightly, "and if I had I should not give them to you. I don't see how we're to get anything else before we reach London. We shall probably have to live on what I have here and there is not much besides these sugar plums that Mme. Morand put in my saddlebags."
"You'll have to get some more brandy for my father," remarked Sybil. "I expect he'll require a quantity of spirit. Weak people do, do they not?"
"I'm afraid he'll have to manage without," replied Matthew. "And now you mustn't chatter any more, Mistress Sybil, but lie down if you please and go to sleep. I think your father is asleep already."
"Yes, but I don't feel a bit sleepy."
"No, I daresay riot," smiled Matthew; "you're going to sit up in the hope that I shall go to sleep. Then you'll steal the dagger and the pistol and give them to your father."
"No," answered Sybil, with a sigh, "I thought of that and of course it was a good idea, but I can see you are not at all likely to go to sleep."
"No, I'm not, but you may as well rest while you can."
But neither of them moved but remained silent in the silence of the little wood. There were so few leaves on the trees that they could see the sky, bright with the glow from the moon, clearly. It was like a sea of silver, and the moon was like a little flying ship, sailing very far away. Now and then a bird moved amid the tracery of black branches that stirred slightly to and fro in the night breeze. There was a delicate scent of growing plants; Matthew thought that there would be ferns and windflowers opening now in the copse.
A dog barked—on a distant farm, the boy supposed; he felt suddenly happy, as if he were, at last, at home.
"It's good to be in England again!" he cried, almost forgetting to whom he spoke, for his thoughts were far away and it was with surprise that he heard Sybil's quiet little voice replying:
"Yes, it is good to be home again!"
"Well, we agree in that, anyhow," said Matthew grimly, "though not in anything else, I think, Mistress Sybil."
"I'm English," she remarked. "And so are you. And yet our fathers are fighting one against the other. It seems a sad thing."
"Your father is a rebel, Mistress Sybil. No one can excuse—or pardon—taking arms against the King."
"The King is in the wrong," replied the little girl. "He taxed the people without any right. The Queen tried to bring foreign soldiers over. We must be free of tyrants and King Charles is a tyrant."
She looked so small and forlorn, seated hunched up, her chin almost on her knees, her face pinched and pale in the lantern light, that Matthew felt more sorrow than irritation at her disloyalty.
"I suppose your father told you that," he said sadly. "I wish that you could have seen the King as I saw him—did you ever see him at all, Sybil?"
"No. I saw the Queen in Paris. When she went to the Louvre palace, one day. She looked so ill and tired, that I was a little grieved. But my father told me that she merited all her misfortunes."
"That is not true!" cried Matthew hotly. "She is a brave and noble lady!"
"Well, tell me about when you saw King Charles."
"He came to Sitherhow Manor House when he was on a progress once. I was only a little boy," said Matthew, with an air of being at least middle-aged, "but he spoke to me very graciously and gave me his hand to kiss. He has a fine, patient face and thick chestnut curls, and he spoke long and earnestly with my father in what we called the bird room, because of the pictures on the walls. My mother was there—"
Matthew broke off abruptly.
"And now all is lost?" asked Sybil, gently; she came nearer to him and put her cold little hand on his hands that were clasped round his knees.
"Oh, yes, you know, mistress—we are ruined, like all the gentlemen who were loyal to the King"—Matthew spoke brusquely, for he did not wish to show how much he was moved—"but what is this to you?"
"There are brave men on our side, too," whispered Sybil, "but do not, I pray, talk too loud, or you will wake my poor father—do you see how he is tossing in his sleep? Lord Essex and General Cromwell are as loyal to the Parliament as you are to the King, and we are loyal to them."
"Your hand is very cold," said Matthew, lowering his voice uneasily; "this is very early in the year to be sleeping outside—I will try to wrap you up."
"Oh, it doesn't matter about me."
But Sybil was shivering and yawning.
"Tell me one thing," asked Matthew, as he reached out for the saddlebags and coats behind them, "was it your father who attacked my father in Paris?"
"Oh, no." Sybil spoke, the boy thought, eagerly. "My father was waiting at Calais for you both—we knew all about the Queen having those jewels from her brother, you see."
"How came you by that knowledge?" asked Matthew, deeply vexed and feeling foolish, for Sybil was laughing quietly.
"We have good spies," she said proudly. "And the Cardinal's men had the Queen watched. You see they wanted them back for France. But we did not care what became of them as long as they didn't reach King Charles. It was the Cardinal's men who robbed your father."
"And I suppose you were put on to me when they found out that the casket was empty?"
"Yes, of course."
"I wonder," cried Matthew, bitterly, "they did not try to murder and rob me, too, instead of putting a child like you on me to trick me."
"Well," said Sybil wisely, but yawning again, "the Queen is the sister of the French King, and the Cardinal does not want too much trouble with the Royalists. So I was sent. I thought," she added regretfully, "that it would be easy, for I knew Father was waiting at Calais for any messengers to the King—either with papers or jewels."
"You are a very clever little girl, Mistress Sybil! And I suppose you were able to tell your father who I really was?"
"Of course, though you never noticed me passing a message to him!"
"I shall not be so foolish in future," was all Matthew could think of saying.
The little girl gave a sigh and curled herself up, drawing her hood closely about her, on the travelling mantle, the corner of which was occupied by her father.
Matthew arranged the saddlebags so as to form a cushion and a protection and laid his own cloak over her limbs.
"Now you go to sleep," he commanded grandly, "and I shall keep watch. And remember that this is not child's play or a jest. If either of you try to do anything—well..."
"I suppose you'll really kill father this time," grinned Sybil, glancing up impertinently, "and even me. Well, I shall not try any trick. I know when I have had the worst of it."
She gave another little sigh and then yawned, snuggling into her wraps.
"She is certainly brave—for a girl," thought Matthew grudgingly, and he watched by the little maid until she slept. "No doubt she had wished to keep awake, but fatigue and the chill night air were too much for her!"
As soon as Sybil was sound asleep Matthew put his plan into execution. He took one of the reins from his picketed horse, unstrapped it carefully and fastened one end into his own belt and the other round Sybil's upper arm, she never waking while he was about this work.
Then, with a groan of relief, he lay down to sleep himself, knowing that she could not stir without attracting his attention and rousing him.
MATTHEW was rather ashamed, when the bright light falling through the almost bare trees woke him and he found that Sybil had not stirred. She still lay wrapped in her little cloak on the saddlebags as he had arranged them, the monkey curled up in a ball on the hem of her dress, her father in a heavy slumber close by.
Matthew was rather glad to be able to put the reins back on the horse without either of his prisoners knowing of his trick.
Then he roused father and daughter, gave them a biscuit and a portion of dried fruit, a nip of brandy for Mr. Quare, a sugar plum for Sybil, and helped them on to their horse.
"What sort of story are you going to tell about us?" asked Simon Quare grimly.
"Well, Mr. Quare," said Matthew frankly," as I said last night, I have not had the experience at this play that you have and no doubt you've already thought out quite a number of good ways of getting free of me and informing against me. But I am trying to keep my wits about me. As for the sort of story I am going to tell, you shall hear that the first time I have to tell it. I shall take care," he added as he sprang into the saddle, "that you don't get much opportunity, or indeed any, of telling your own tale. I am sorry we have lost so much time. We are not at Canterbury yet—and have forty miles and more to go."
The Puritan did not reply; he looked sallow and haggard in the light of the pale morning sun. But Sybil was fresh and rosy and sat behind her father with an air of unconcern, though Matthew caught her eyes travelling as with a casual glance towards his belt where he still kept the leather pouch.
"The little mischief," he thought, not without admiration, "still means to make an attempt on the jewels."
And he threw back his head and laughed so heartily that the Puritan demanded sourly where the joke was.
"I don't know yet," said Matthew, frankly; "it might turn out to be against me."
They took the road and proceeded at a fair pace towards London, though Matthew, for charity's sake, could not go too fast since the jolting might open Mr. Quare's wound.
As Matthew could not go to any inn to pick up the post-horses that no doubt were waiting for him—for he dare not go with the travellers to a hostelry nor yet had he anywhere to leave them while he went himself—he had to make the two horses serve the whole of the rest of the journey to the capital.
This might mean another night on the road, as the boy reflected bitterly. The morning passed without any adventure; there were a good many travellers of all kinds about, but no one took any notice of Matthew. So many travellers of all sorts and conditions were now going up and down England, either into exile or returning from exile, riding to or from one of the various armies, there was so much confusion and disorder in England that even the most unlikely sort of people attracted no attention on the highroads.
At midday the boy shared out the food again. The store of provisions was now beginning to get low but he thought that it would just hold out until he reached London; they had skirted Canterbury, taking byepaths and lanes, and were then making towards Faversham.
"My luck," thought Matthew, "has been pretty good. We might easily have passed some Republican soldiers like we did yesterday." He considered, with gratitude, how lucky it had been that Mr. Quare had not called to his aid that posse of Roundheads!
Matthew believed that he could understand why the spy had not done so. He wanted, no doubt, all the credit to himself for preventing these French jewels from reaching King Charles.
And then another thought entered the boy's anxious mind. What did he know of Mr. Quare? Perhaps he was something worse than a spy, and before he handed the jewels over to his superiors intended to take one or two of them for himself.
Matthew found a small farm where the horses were baited and then was proceeding when Mr. Quare complained of fatigue, a throbbing pain in his head and a sense of sick uneasiness, and Sybil urged that they should stop. Matthew's sharp eyes—that he kept always on the alert—spied out a glimpse of steel in a little glade not far ahead of them, across the farm lands.
Puritans or Cavaliers? Matthew dare not risk it. He put his hand on the bridle of Simon Quare's horse, turned its head abruptly and turned up a lane to the right.
"Father," exclaimed Sybil, "Matthew has seen someone!"
"What if he has, my child?" replied the Puritan. "I can do nothing."
And he held out his empty hands.
"I do not even hold my own reins," he added bitterly.
Matthew felt sick with anxiety. How nearly he had been trapped! He felt sure that the soldiers beyond the farm were Puritans and that Mr. Quare had seen them and complained of sickness as a pretext for a delay! Delay! He was ashamed of the length of time his journey, that had seemed so simple in Paris, was taking. He had to make now a long roundabout journey; he lost his way, for sign-posts were scarce and the dusk was falling by the time they had, at last, slipped past the outskirts of Faversham, watered the horses at a wayside pond and shared out what were almost the last of Mme. Morand's provisions. Mr. Quare and Sybil remained silent: the first was, Matthew thought, sullen, the second disheartened, and both seemed sad and tired.
The boy was really sorry for them; the Puritan looked quite ill, and Sybil was pale and wan. Even Nicko, the monkey, had a wistful, wizened look.
To add to his troubles, Matthew did not know in whose hands, those of the King or of the Parliament, this part of the country was. Perhaps Mr. Quare or Sybil knew, but Matthew could not ask them.
So he had to proceed slowly and cautiously, turning aside into lanes and fields whenever he saw armed men. He knew that London was held by the Parliament and that the nearer he came to London, the more likely he was to fall into the hands of the rebels..
As his weary, dispirited little troop approached Sittingbourne, Matthew remembered that one of his father's friends, Colonel Miles Gould, lived at Crawford Manor.
"We cannot make London before dark with these tired horses," he said abruptly to his prisoners, "and we must soon have some food and rest ourselves. So I am going to try to see if I can find shelter with a friend who lives near here."
"If it is some years since you were here, young sir," the Puritan roused himself to say, "you may find your friend's house in other hands."
"I must risk that," replied Matthew shortly, and he reined in his horse to ask the way to Crawford Manor of a little girl going along with a pail of milk. The child told him, and they rode in silence; then Sybil said in a small voice:
"What is to happen to us in your friend's house? If you tell him who we are, Father will be hanged and I shall be sent to prison."
"I suppose you would see me hanged?" said Matthew, smiling. "But your father looks very ill and faint. We must find some help for him. But not this!" he added hastily, as he heard the sound of horses and saw a small troop of horses coming towards them along the road that glimmered white in the twilight. With a quick pull on Mr. Quare's bridle he turned the two horses up a small lane, overshadowed by saplings that grew on either bank.'
After they had gone, aimlessly, a little way, Sybil cried out.
"Oh, please stop! My father is indeed ill. He is swaying in the saddle!"
Matthew took no notice of this appeal.
He felt very anxious, the more so as he beheld a horseman coming down the lane towards them. Had he avoided the soldiery on the road, who might after all have been friends, only to walk into a trap?
But he was a little reassured when he saw that the newcomer was a single gentleman who appeared to be unarmed save for the usual civilian sword, and to be wearing ordinary clothes. Not an officer this, or at least, not one on active service. There were few men left in England who did not fight for King or Parliament at one time or another. But those who were so fortunate as to have some estates left to them came back now and then to look after them.
This gentleman advanced down the lane and asked Matthew in a pleasant voice who he was. "And why are you here, sir, if I might ask? This lane leads only to my house—Crawford Manor."
"Then you must be Colonel Gould," said Matthew boldly, taking a reckless chance, "my father's friend. I am Matthew Jaye. I was coming to try to find you."
Colonel Gould exclaimed in delight as he advanced and dismounted.
"Why, Matthew! I thought I knew your voice, it is very like that of your father. You were only a boy when I saw you last, but I heard you were doing good work for the King."
"I'm on the King's service now," said Matthew, rather breathlessly. "I saw some soldiery ahead, I do not know if they are for King or Parliament."
"I do not either," replied Colonel Gould gravely. "And what are these companions of yours?" he said, glancing at the wounded man and the child, who sat silent on their horse. "And I see you have a monkey with you, too. What are you travelling as, a mountebank?" And he laughed pleasantly, standing by the boy's stirrup.
"No," said Matthew, laughing also, with relief. And he gave the story of his supposed errand, to purchase trumpets and to sell flageolets to Henry Knibbs of St. Paul's Churchyard.
While he was talking he was rapidly considering what tale he should give about Simon Quare and his daughter. He had several reasons for not wishing to disclose that they were Republican spies, fearing that Colonel Gould, whom he had always heard of from his father as a most devoted Royalist, would treat them with extreme harshness, sending them probably immediately, under an escort of his servants or tenantry, to the nearest prison. Not only did he not wish this to happen, out of a kind of tenderness for Sybil and for her father, but he felt that he and the Quares were playing a game together and it was his wits against theirs and that he would be not only acting unfairly, but depriving himself of much enjoyment if he ended the play in this abrupt manner. So he said:
"The poor man is an Italian. He was set upon by rogues on his way from Dover. I found him and his little girl on the roadside. He had been robbed of his hurdy-gurdy—and all his money. So I promised that I would escort them to the neighbouring town: then, it became dark and I thought of you, but we only turned up this lane, as I told you, because of soldiery, by chance."
"You did well, boy," replied Colonel Gould heartily. "I come out every evening and keep an eye on who is passing. Very often one can give succour to a friend or divert the attentions of a foe. Let this poor fellow and his child come up to the Manor House with me and we will see what we can do for them."
"Yes," said Matthew, looking straight at Simon Quare, "I shall be pleased if you can give them shelter. But at the same time, Colonel Gould, we do not know anything about them, do we? They might be spies and I think that you ought to see that they do not leave the Manor House until I do. I shall be glad of a few hours' rest and a good meal but after that I must go on again to my appointment."
"Are you carrying very important papers?" asked Colonel Gould, walking beside the two horsemen, as they proceeded along the lane.
"Well, they're important enough," said Matthew. "For me, you know."
Then he told the tale of how his father was to have been sent on this errand but could not because he had been attacked by the men, no doubt French or English spies, in Paris.
"I quite agree with what you say about this fellow here. Italian, is he? Well, one never knows. Still, he looks harmless enough, and sick of his wound too, and I suppose the child couldn't do anything. Come along, my good man," he added, speaking to Quare. "Follow us up to the house, and do not try any tricks because I have got a good number of men up here."
Matthew wondered, desperately, if Simon Quare would play up to this tale. He might declare himself to be an Englishman, or even his identity.
"And that," thought Matthew, "would make me look a fool. For indeed, it is rather deceitful of me to play this trick upon Colonel Gould, who is my father's friend, and a Loyalist."
But neither the child nor Simon Quare seemed disposed to give away the trick. Simon Quare said something in Italian, and, despite, his faintness, gave that clever imitation of a foreigner that he had given on The Windflower, and Sybil said nothing at all.
So they proceeded to the house, Colonel Gould, who seemed a cheerful kind of gentleman, talking about the one topic that occupied all men's minds—the war. He had, as Matthew had guessed, only come home for a few days to look after his estates, which so far had not been seized by the Parliament, then he was to return to the garrison in Oxford.
"I am one of the lucky ones," he said soberly, "not like your father, Matthew. My wife has friends on the other side and I have not had my estates seized or had to sell them, although," he-added sadly, "I've raised every penny I can upon them. Money, young sir, money—that's what the King needs."
Matthew glowed, remembering with joy the wealth he carried with him; his hand stole to his pouch.
They reached the Manor House—a pleasant Tudor dwelling with tall, crooked chimneypots and a small tower either end—that stood in formal gardens and was surrounded by a moat.
Roused by the sounds of horses' hoofs coming over the drawbridge, the Colonel's wife came down to the front door and gave Matthew, whom she said she remembered as a child, a warm welcome. She was a pleasant-faced middle-aged woman who looked anxious and tired, as most women did in those days. She was very sorry to see Sybil, who had to be lifted from the pillion, so stiff and tired was she.
'"The little girl should not be travelling," said Mistress Gould, "in these sad times!"
Then Matthew hastened to explain about the poor foreigners who had come, on a permit from the Duke of Savoy's Resident in London, to try and pick up a living in England. And he gave Sybil a mischievous look, as much as to say, "How do you like that, my young madam? Before, you were a gentlewoman and I was your servant; and now you're just a poor gipsy to whom T am offering charity!"
But Sybil appeared indifferent, her small lace tranquil. She made her thanks to Mrs. Gould in a few cool words of French.
"She's going to play the part," thought Matthew, though he had to admit, reluctantly, that she did not look like a vagabond or a gipsy, and Mrs. Gould exclaimed that the child was very clean and precise for a travelling Italian's daughter!
But Sybil was, in one way, fitted for the part—she was as dark as her father and did not appear like an English girl.
Mrs. Gould gave the child, her father, and the little monkey into the care of the housekeeper and they were taken to the housekeeper's room to be looked after.
"She is a good woman," said the kind hostess, "and will do her best for them."
Matthew then somewhat anxiously impressed upon his host and hostess the absolute necessity of keeping an eye upon the two travellers. He almost regretted his deception; it would have been better, surely, to tell the truth to so stout and loyal a man as Colonel Gould. Surely it had been nothing but a weakness to try and save the Quares! Colonel Gould seemed a little surprised at his insistence on guarding the two prisoners.
"Of course I shall not let them go. I do not see how they can try to get away. The man is sick and he will not be able to get a horse. I have sentries at the drawbridge, I always do now, as the bridge is not always taken up at night. So unless they are very skilful, and very desperate too, they will not be able to get out of Crawford Manor tonight. Do you suspect them?" he added abruptly.
"I suspect everyone these times," said Matthew, with a flush for his own evasion. "As you say, Colonel Gould, it seems pretty clear they will not be able to get out of the Manor House to-night, and that is all I was concerned about. They might, you know, if they were spies, give me away to the nearest Puritan quarters, and then I should be watched and followed to-morrow and robbed of what I carry."
But even to so trusty a friend as Colonel Gould Matthew did not say what his precious trust really was; again his hand went to his pouch.
The house, though not large or pretentious, was pleasant and gracious, and Matthew felt soothed at being in this delightful atmosphere again, so different from the hunted hole-and-corner life he had lived for so long. The Manor House was very much like his own home, Sitherhow, which he could remember so well, and Mrs. Gould was not unlike his own mother.
He had a comfortable bedroom and a good meal before he went up to it; a fire was still burning on the large hearth, for it was chilly, and all the old comfortable English life was proceeding as smoothly as if this war was not taking place a few miles away and the whole country torn by civil strife.
After supper Matthew would have liked to go to bed, for he intended to make an early start in the morning. This piece of good luck, for astonishing good luck it was, must not be allowed to delay him. He also felt suspicious about the Quares; he thought that they might very easily give him the slip.
But Colonel Gould would not allow him to go to bed so easily, but made him sit by the fire and talk about his father and the life the exiles lived in Paris and the success they had coming to and fro and sending messages by means of Captain Hitchcock on The Windflower.
So it was quite late when Matthew was able to leave the jolly Cavalier and go upstairs to his room.
He was surprised on opening the door to see his hostess standing by the table in the large oriel window. She had left the dining-hall some time before and he had imagined she had gone to her own room. She turned round as if startled at seeing him, she had a candle in her hand and by the light of it her face looked more than ever sallow and haggard.
"I always go through the house last thing at night," she explained. "You know my husband is rather careless, and I am nervous. I always think there may be spies or traitors lurking about. This room of yours has been shut up for some time, so I looked about carefully here. I also thought I saw lights in the park, that's why I was standing in the window."
She gave all this explanation quickly, then, approaching Matthew, kissed his forehead.
"Poor boy!" she said, then with a "Good night" left him.
Matthew was far too excited to sleep. First he gave a keen scrutiny to his baggage; the saddlebags he had allowed to be taken charge of by Colonel Gould's servants, but he had kept the smaller packages, which included the model trumpet, in his own possession, much to the amusement of his host, who had cried good-naturedly that he would recommend him to His Majesty for a diligent messenger. After the attempts made by Sybil and her father on the pouch strapped to his belt, Matthew had not felt safe in leaving the jewels there.
Now he had the opportunity he had been waiting for ever since he came to Crawford Manor. First he slipped the heavy steel bolt at the polished wooden door, then he drew the tapestry curtains across the oriel window, peeping out first at the landscape towards which he felt an endearing sympathy.
How still and peaceful it lay, the bare trees—for at night the buds did not show—interlaced against the sky still lit by the fading beams of the sinking moon. A few sparkles of silver glittered in the moat, in which the shadow of the drawbridge showed as a dark semicircle.
Soon the moon would be set and it would be easy for someone to attempt to escape from the Manor House. Matthew thought again with some anxiety of Simon Quare and his daughter. Surely Colonel Gould would not be careless enough to allow them to escape? No, Matthew could not believe that. Besides, there was, as he had seen himself, a sentinel at the gates, and other men were disposed about the park.
Then Simon Quare was sick and might be now, for all Matthew knew, in a delirium. The girl must be almost at the end of her strength and they had no means with which to bribe anyone. "Even," he thought grimly, "if they do try to break out of the house, they will not get far."
Still he could not altogether allay his anxiety, and he blamed himself yet once more for the foolish tale he had told Colonel Gould out of what was, he was sure, a mistaken kindness. Still, it was no good worrying himself about that now. He ought, he knew, to take some rest, but first he had an important duty to perform.
He again looked cautiously round the room, for his father had trained him to always make a close scrutiny of any strange apartment, even if it appeared to be in the house of a friend.
There were tapestries on the wall and Matthew lifted each piece and looked behind it. There was nothing but a smooth-panelled wall; he passed his hand over that to see if by any chance there was a secret door, and then rapped with his knuckles to find if the wall was hollow.
He was rather ashamed at taking these precautions, for there could be no question as to the loyalty of Colonel Gould; at the same time it was possible that he had some traitor in his employment.
Still, Matthew's anxious search revealed nothing and it was with relief that he put the candle back again on the large oak table that stood before the oriel window.
It was a pleasant room, the mellow boards were shining with beeswax, the embers of the wood fire Mrs. Gould had thoughtfully ordered still glowed on the hearth; a large mirror in a tortoiseshell frame hung above the carved stone mantelpiece. The large bed was a four-poster and from the tester hung curtains of white wool embroidered in bright colours with acorns and foxes.
Matthew's candle cast fleeting shadows round this cheerful apartment. He began to breathe more freely. It was foolish of him to worry about the Quares and still more foolish to worry himself about the possibility of being spied on!
He then began his task.
First of all he took the pouch off his belt; with what satisfaction he felt its weight! The jewels were, then, still safe inside! Of course, nothing could have happened to them and he had had his hand on the pouch almost the entire time he had been in Crawford Manor. He drew the stout leather thong that formed the strings and slipped the jewels out on to the red-quilted coverlet of the bed.
It was the first time he had looked at them carefully and had a chance to admire their beauty. Now he was amazed at their brilliancy. He took them up one by one and the long beams of red, purple, and white light shot through his fingers as the candle rays struck the stones.
Some were set in the form of a handsome necklace, others were loose, still, however, in their gold settings as if they had been hastily and rather unskilfully wrenched from some large ornament. The cross of emeralds was of exceptional beauty; Matthew had never looked upon such green fire. It seemed the hue of the sea and the forest combined, lit by a light that exceeded that of the brightest sun at noonday. Eagerly he tried to calculate what these gems must be worth. The Queen had told them that they must be sent to Holland, where the King's sister, the Princess of Orange, would be able to arrange for their sale.
He hoped that this Royal lady would get a good price from the merchants of Amsterdam, and he wondered how long the proceeds of this sale would suffice to pay the King's army.
Then he took from the smaller valise that he had brought with him the silk shirt, much-mended but still in fairly good repair, that Mme. Morand had washed and repaired for him so often. This, not without reluctance, he tore into strips.
Then he put the jewels back into their little soft doeskin cases and wrapped the silk round them. When he had made these neat packages with a good deal of care, he put them down the mouth of the trumpet and wedged them in with strips of silk. Next, taking up the emerald cross, wrapped up in doeskin and silk, Matthew fastened this inside his doublet just above his heart.
The trumpet had as protection a neat cap of velvet and buckram on which was embroidered the monogram of the French maker. When this was tied into place by its tasselled string there was, of course, not the least sign of the jewels.
Satisfied with this part of his task, Matthew proceeded to complete his work by taking what remained of the shirt and stuffing it into the leather pouch so that it looked filled out as if it still contained the jewels. He then placed the trumpet, his sword, and the pistols he had taken from Simon Quare on the bed and climbed up beside them and put out the light.
He would rest, if not sleep. But sleep he did and instantly had a fantastic dream in which all his adventures since he left Paris were strangely mingled together.
On a sea of stiff dark-blue waves rode a little toy boat that was The Windflower and on the deck of it, gesticulating wildly, was a figure like a wooden manikin with a long, sallow, yellow face, straight black hair, a hat with a broken feather, and a monkey on its shoulders. Matthew thought in his dream that he was rowing across the waves towards this figure and that out of the waves came the head and shoulders of a little mermaid who wore a crown of seaweed and round her neck a cross of emerald stones.
This fantastic picture was interrupted by a quickly moving vision of the high road from Dover, with the inns at intervals, and the travellers, the beggars, and the soldiers riding up and down between almost bare hedges sprinkled with the earliest green, where the steel of men-at-arms glittered through the woods by the wayside and where Matthew could see himself with Simon Quare behind him, and the monkey on his shoulder, going on endlessly like a mechanical toy towards the distant city that never came any nearer.
Matthew tried to cry out. He thought that the stars were falling in a shower from the sky on to the road and that he was trying to pick them up, and that while he did so they turned to diamonds and rolled away into the ditch.
Then, in his dream, this endless ride was brought short by a turnpike. The monkey jumped off his shoulder, landed on the gate, leapt off again, and was banging at the door of a building that seemed to be a fantastic version of Crawford Manor.
The monkey's raps grew louder and louder until they seemed to fill the air as great beats of a drum. So loud did they become that Matthew woke up with a start.
For a while he wondered where he was, here in the dark with an owl hooting without. He put out his hand quickly and felt the cold, smooth metal of the trumpet, then the steel of the pistols.
Yes, he could remember where he was. He was rather vexed with himself that he had gone to sleep and was still confused by his dream, when the knock came again and he realized that this at least was not a dream. It was the knocking, of course, that had aroused him, and it was not a loud knock either but a gentle persistent tap followed by a scratching on the door.
"Have I overslept myself? Ought I to be on my way again?" thought Matthew nervously, as he descended on to the bed step and then on to the floor. But no, it was still quite dark; he had not drawn the curtains completely together yet no streak of light fell through the opening between them.
Taking his short sword in his hand he went to the door and cautiously opened it.
An elderly manservant stood there holding a lamp that he shaded with one hand and which, because it was small and feeble, cast only a dim glow over his haggard features.
"I am Jamieson, Colonel Gould's major-domo," said this man in a voice that seemed full of fear. "Perhaps, sir, you noticed me last night at supper?"
"Yes, indeed, I did. But what is the matter?"
"Hush! Don't raise your voice! Can I come into your room, sir?"
"Of course." But Matthew glanced down at the man as he spoke. No doubt it was foolishly suspicious of him, but he was looking for weapons. Jamieson was, however, as befitted his station, completely unarmed; besides, both his hands were occupied with the lamp.
"I'm sorry if I have disturbed you, sir, you've had a short night of it. But the truth is that one of the men whom we leave in the park to keep watch says he has had word that a posse of Roundheads are coming this way and are likely to be here by the dawn. Now of course, as soon as Colonel Gould heard that, he was booted and saddled and away. If he were made prisoner it would be one the less to fight for the King."
"What of Mrs. Gould?" asked Matthew at once.
"Well, sir, you see—her father is fighting on the Parliamentary side, and though the King hasn't got a more loyal subject than Mrs. Gould, still they respect her. It's for her sake that the property's been left untouched. They are only making this visit to see if Colonel Gould is here. Of course, you mustn't be found. Colonel Gould had no time to come and see you himself, sir," continued the man hurriedly, "but he told me to get you out of the house as soon as possible. He left some money for you and some directions."
"Thank you truly," said Matthew, "but I've got both. But I must take those two with me—you know, the Italian and his daughter."
"Do you think they are spies, sir?" asked the manservant, who was helping Matthew to strap on his pistols and sword and get into his boots and cloak.
Again Matthew could not bring himself to tell a direct lie to a faithful friend and made an evasion for which he despised himself.
"One cannot have too many precautions these times," he replied. "I should feel I had done very wrong if I left these two strangers to get into touch with the Puritans. For all I know they might set them on my track. No, no, Jamieson, you must go and rouse them too and tell them that we must leave at once. They will not be able to resist, and force must be used if necessary. Have you seen them," he added eagerly, "since supper-time?"
"Oh, yes, sir, the little girl was looked after in the housekeeper's room. Mrs. Wood was very kind to her, but the child seemed rather sullen."
"And the man, the sick man—he is fit to travel, I suppose?" asked Matthew anxiously, taking up the precious trumpet and fastening it by its strap round his shoulders.
"You've got your messages, your papers safely?" asked the servant.
"Yes, yes, indeed," said Matthew with a smile, and he touched the pouch by his side. "All the valuables I carry are here."
He did not wish to deceive intentionally one whose loyalty he did not suspect, but his father had always told him that, when on business like this, it was safe to make up one story and to stick to it before friend and foe and to give nothing away unless it was absolutely necessary.
It had, perhaps, been wrong on his part to give himself away to Colonel Gould when he had met him in the lane, but he had taken the chance and it had proved successful, but he did not intend to take any more risks. Until he reached London he was Paul Dubois, the apprentice of the French brass instrument maker, to his enemies, and he was Matthew Jaye on the King's business to his friends, and he was carrying the jewels in the pouch.
The anxious boy was not best pleased at this hurried exit from Crawford Manor. He had all his plans to make and it was not pleasant to think that the Puritans were in formidable numbers in the neighbourhood. Still, he had meant to start in but a few hours and he must simply make the best of this turn of fortune.
Jamieson seemed to notice his glum and dissatisfied look, for he said:
"It'll soon be dawn, sir, it only lacks about an hour of the rising of the sun. And I'll come with you to put you well on your way with the lantern."
"Yes, you'd better do that, Jamieson, I don't know how I should find my way out of the park. You see it was dusk when we came up last night, and I don't want to blunder into the wrong people."
"Yes, yes, sir," said the old man, who seemed to be trembling between eagerness and nervousness, "of course I'll do that. Mrs. Gould will expect it of me. Now, sir, if you will come downstairs and wait in the hall, my lady will give you a glass of wine."
"I hope she's not roused for that so early," said Matthew as the two left the room together.
"Why, no, she's been up this past hour and more, poor lady, seeing her husband off. But pray come softly, sir, I have orders not to rouse the other servants. The housekeeper's mother lives here," he added in a whisper, "out of charity, for she was Colonel Gould's old nurse. And she's an ancient crone now and would set up such a chattering and shrieking once an alarm was given that there would be no staying her."
Matthew promised to be as quiet as possible. He had learnt to be stealthy in his movements and not a board creaked under his tread as he went down the handsome oak staircase lit by the little lamp that Jamieson held aloft.
When they reached the entrance hall that was handsomely furnished with a Persian carpet and portraits of former owners of the Manor on the walls, Matthew saw his hostess in the shadows; she was only just visible in the little light that Jamieson held. The poor woman looked very distressed; she was hastily dressed and had thrown a riding-cloak over her shoulders. Her hair hung dishevelled and her face was pale.
She put her finger on her lips when she saw Matthew but he did not need this warning to be discreet.
Stepping forward, he took the hand she offered him and kissed it, thanking her in a whisper for her hospitality and message.
"You may be sure, madam," he whispered, "they will not catch me. I shall be through the park and away long before the Roundheads have arrived."
He did not wish to say anything harsh about these rogues and rebels, as they were to him, for he remembered what the old servant had told him—that the lady's own father was a traitor and he was in high command in General Cromwell's army. So he thanked her again and expressed his hopes for her husband's safety.
"Oh, my husband is sale enough," said Mrs. Gould, with a pale smile. "He will be beyond the confines of the park by now."
"Madam," said Jamieson, putting in a respectful word, "the young gentleman wants his two companions to go with him. Shall I go and rouse them?"
"What, that sick man and that poor little girl?" cried Mrs. Gould. "Surely you will leave them here in my charge. The rebels will not harm them," she added quickly.
"No, I do not think so," agreed Matthew with a smile, "but for my own safety and yours I must take them with me. I am responsible for them, you see." Then, feeling that he could not utterly deceive this kind hostess, he said: "I have some reasons to suspect them. They must not, madam, get in touch with the Roundheads."
"Very well then," sighed Mrs. Gould in an agitated tone, "but do not let us waste any more time in this discussion. Go, Jamieson, and fetch these two poor creatures. Bring out the horses too and have them ready by the drawbridge."
The moments of waiting that followed were very painful to Matthew. He wished to leave Crawford Manor as soon as possible, for he felt not only anxious as to the success of his own errand but fearful lest his presence there should endanger Mrs. Gould.
"It was an unfortunate thing your husband had to meet me yesterday, madam. It would have been better if I had gone on and taken my fortune. Probably those soldiers whom I saw on the road are the very Roundheads who are giving you a visit now."
"Possibly! Possibly!" whispered Mrs. Gould dully. She seemed overcome by emotion and sank down on the large oak settle that stood inside the door.
Matthew was very sorry for her, as he was for all the ladies who were suffering so much at this time, and his heart hardened in indignation against the rebels who had ruined so many pleasant English homes and brought distress and confusion on the fair land of England.
This was how it looked to Matthew Jaye, though he knew well enough the situation had another aspect to other people. It was strange to think, for instance, that little Sybil Quare thought the King a tyrant and put down all the faults of this dreadful war to him and his ministers.
After what seemed a very long time, Jamieson returned. He said that Mrs. Wood, the housekeeper, had been roused—she had been used for to—some time now to this kind of alarm—and had helped the little girl to get ready while he himself had dressed the Italian, who seemed to have recovered his strength and something of his spirits.
"He does not look as yellow and dismal as he did last night," added the servant. "They are waiting now the other side of the drawbridge with the horses."
As he saw Matthew about to utter a protest, the man smiled grimly.
"Not alone, sir, I can assure you. Two stout fellows are with them."
"You seem very suspicious of these poor wretches," remarked Mrs. Gould, rising.
"I think that I should not have brought them here," said Matthew, who felt shy because she was so distressed.
Then again he took leave of his hostess, who placed her hand on his head and said once more as she had said the night before when taking leave of him in his bed-chamber, "Poor boy!"
Matthew rather resented this expression of pity. He thought himself honoured by the difficult mission he had undertaken and it was not for a woman, even a brave loyal woman like Mrs. Gould, to be offering him compassion.
He stepped out of the Manor House and the great oaken door closed at once behind him. Looking about him he saw nothing because of the darkness; he did not know the time for he had not heard a clock strike for some while, and Jamieson's account that the dawn was but an hour off seemed hard to believe. There was no glow of grey in the sky and now that the moon had set it was almost impossible to distinguish the trees from the heavens.
"Where is the drawbridge?" he said. "Ahead of us?"
"No, sir," whispered Jamieson, who had closed the shutter of the dark lantern. "We must go round by the pleasure gardens and the bowling-greens. There used to be two drawbridges," he added confidentially, "but the master had one—that in front of the main entrance here—taken away when these troubles began."
"Yes, I remember we did that at home, too," replied Matthew. "But it did not save the place," he added grimly.
"It may not save Crawford Manor, sir," whispered back Jamieson. "Come carefully now and keep your hands on the masonry of the house, sir, there's not a light about but mine and I don't like to show it more than I can help."
However, he opened the shutter a small way and allowed the yellow beams of the lamp to fall upon the ground so that Matthew could see his own feet as they proceeded over the short, still winterbitten turf.
"You see, sir, this is the way to the stables. You pass them and come out opposite the pleasure gardens and the bowling-greens and there you find the only drawbridge that's left."
"Well," said Matthew, "you must go ahead. Keep the lantern light on the ground, I pray you, for it is as dark as sin to me."
As he spoke he heard the stable clock strike and was silent while he counted the strokes.
"Only four o'clock!" he whispered. "It'll surely be more than a good hour before it is light."
"The clock's not correct, sir. There is a man coming in to look to it to-morrow, since it seems to be beyond our wits to manage it."
Matthew made no answer; he was following the servant carefully round the house, which, like so many fifteenth century' mansions that had been added to by each generation, was built in an irregular fashion.
"Well, sir," whispered Jamieson, who seemed to wish to keep up the conversation, "no one can say that you loitered on the way. You can't have had much rest since you left Paris."
"I've done well enough," replied Matthew, also speaking below his breath, "and loiter is the last thing I intend to do. I shan't be easy until I've reached Mr. Knibbs's shop in St. Paul's Churchyard."
"Here we are, sir," said Jamieson. "Here is the drawbridge. I daresay you can see the gates now that your eyes have become a little accustomed to the dark."
Matthew strained his gaze; it was true that he could just make out the piers of a massive gateway rising against the less intense darkness of the night.
"Well, sir, here you are. You'll find your companions and Colonel Gould's men the other side of the drawbridge. Don't stay any longer, but go upon your way."
"Are not you to guide me? I don't know how to get across the park without help!"
"Oh, one of the servants will do that," said Jamieson hastily. "I've got to go back and stay with my lady. She's no one responsible with her, you know," he added, with a touch of pride.
"Ah, very well then. I will rely upon one of the men whom I find with the mountebanks. The horses are there, and everything else?"
"Yes, sir, everything that you would wish—food, too."
"Are not you going to open the gates?"
But Jamieson replied that the gates were the other side of the moat and that the servant who held the horses would already have opened them.
"Well, leave me the lamp at least a little longer," said Matthew, for the servant had closed the shutter and the darkness was again profound, and so was the silence.
It seemed to Matthew that Jamieson had vanished, for there was no answer to the boy's request, though he spoke the servant's name in a whisper and put out his hand to touch him.
"Jamieson! Jamieson!"
No reply.
Then the boy shrugged his shoulders; the man, nervous or over-cautious, had vanished and left him in the dark to cross the bridge without a light. Well, there was nothing much in that.
The excited boy peered ahead, trying to make out the line of the bridge and, if possible, the forms of those who were waiting for him on the other side of the moat. He could see nothing and still hear nothing, save presently the hoot of an owl.
So Matthew was about to step forward when he felt his cloak violently tugged from behind. He was so startled he could not help crying out.
"Is that you, Jamieson?"
"No, it's I," whispered a small, anxious voice, "it's Sybil Quare."
"You here, Sybil! I thought you were the other side of the bridge with your father, waiting with the horses?"
"There will be no horses," the child hurried on, "and there's nobody waiting. They mean you to fall into the moat and drown. Don't you understand?"
A cold chill ran through the youth's veins. He had half suspected some treachery; he felt Sybil clinging to him.
"Why, Colonel Gould—" he murmured, aghast.
"Hush! Don't say a word. You must be afraid for me if you are not afraid for yourself, must you not, Mr. Jaye?"
The child, though in a state of extreme terror, still spoke with dignity and precision. "Colonel Gould, yes, he's still up in his room. He's not to know what his wife and old Jamieson do, is he?"
"I never thought of that! Of course! Her father serves in General Cromwell's army!"
"Yes, Mistress Gould!—she's serving General Cromwell, too. And I'm betraying her. I shouldn't be doing this, but you saved my father's life. When I heard them plan this I made up my mind to save yours. So I crept out behind you."
"Well, I could swim the moat!" whispered Matthew, desperately.
"I don't think you could," came Mistress Sybil's voice out of the dark, "it's full of weeds and very deep. And, of course," she added gravely, "when you were quite dead they would drag you up and take your papers and the jewels."
"Well, Sybil, you seem to have saved me and I am sure you've repaid the debt you may have owed me for your father. Where is he?"
"He's ill," she said sadly, "they've put him in old Jamieson's room! He and Mistress Gould are the only people here on the side of the Parliament."
"Well, what am I going to do with you," wondered Matthew, "and how am I going to get away from Crawford Manor?"
"I'll show you how to leave Crawford Manor. We've been here before, though Colonel Gould has not seen us. Mistress Gould managed to hide us in the outhouses." Even at this moment she showed a pride in her father's resource. "He has so many disguises, you see, nobody would recognize him. And no one notices a little girl much, either."
Matthew was thinking rapidly; he was wondering if he could trust Sybil even now. At first he had done so without reflection, but how was he to know she was not laying some trap for him?
She seemed to guess why he hesitated.
"If you don't believe me," she said, "go through that open gateway and see what happens."
Matthew did so. Cautiously he moved forward, then when he felt the ground beginning to slope he sat down as one will when descending a bank or a ditch and let himself cautiously down. Yes, it was quite true—there was no bridge. And then after a while, as he let his hand down, he could feel the cold water lapping the dead reeds.
He drew himself up again quickly.
"Will you show me how to leave this place?" he asked. "If you can't, well, then, I'll have to rouse Colonel Gould and tell him the whole story."
"You wouldn't do that, Matthew, after I've saved your life?" urged Sybil.
"Well, I should have to. My duty to the King comes first. But I'd much rather, Sybil, you told me how to get away."
"As I said before, I can do that. You must take my hand and follow me. We don't want to rouse the dogs, and I daresay," she added primly, "Jamieson will be out soon trying to pull you up from the moat."
"You seem to be a very cool little girl," said Matthew, "though I don't think you're quite as hard-hearted as you would like to think you are."
Sybil did not reply. He felt her small fingers entwine in his and they passed quickly round the side of the house, keeping close against the wall.
"I suppose your precious purse is all right?" asked Sybil over her shoulder, and as she spoke Matthew put his free hand to his side. With a grim smile he noted that the pouch had gone. Now it no longer contained the treasure he had not given much attention to it, and it had not been so difficult for Jamieson to take the opportunity, while they were proceeding together through the dark, to unhook it from his belt.
"He has found out by now, I suppose, and so has his mistress, that the jewels aren't there," thought Matthew. "Well, the trumpet is safe and as long as I have that...."
But he realized that he was in real danger. As soon as the servant and his mistress discovered they had not got the treasure Jamieson would probably return to the moat to see the result of his treachery and might discover that no one had fallen in.
"You see," continued Sybil, walking rapidly and talking in a breathless fashion, "you mustn't really blame Mistress Gould. She was sorry for you and she did not mean you to be drowned. Jamieson was to pull you out with the hook they have for getting things out of the moat, when you had lost your senses, and then take the jewels from you. But he saw that was too dangerous," added the child shrewdly. "For when you recovered you would have given the whole thing away to Colonel Gould. And he meant to let you drown."
"I've no doubt he was quite wise from his point of view," Matthew agreed.
"Here is the real drawbridge," whispered Sybil. "Of course the outer gate's the other side of the park, but it's not so difficult to get around it."
"And what am I going to do with you?"
"I'm afraid I'll have to come with you."
"To spy on me?" protested Matthew.
"No, because I'm afraid what will happen if I stay behind. I don't like leaving my father, but he's in good hands. Jamieson is his loyal friend, though a servant."
Matthew reflected that it would be better for Sybil to come with him. He did not altogether trust her; besides, even if she were loyal to him she might easily be frightened or persuaded by Mrs. Gould to betray him, whereas, with luck, if he were not betrayed, they might for days think he was lying at the bottom of the moat and so give up trying to pursue him, and Jamieson would think the jewels with him, at the bottom of the moat, and he would have to look secretly for fear of his mistress.
Matthew had to trust himself to Sybil to guide him across the park; it was so dark he could not possibly have found his way alone.
So he just had to let the little girl, still holding his hand, walk in front and lead him across the drawbridge, round, in rather a difficult fashion, the stone piers of the gate the other side—she seemed to know exactly where there was a gap in the stone parapet that edged the moat—and so across the park. It was due to Sybil's caution and skill that they had evaded the sentries.
Matthew waited anxiously for the dawn to break. Of course, old Jamieson had deceived him; it was much earlier in the morning than the servant had pretended and they had walked quite a long way before a faint pearl colour flushed with pink began to show in the sky.
Matthew drew a breath of relief. By now they were clear of the park and out on the lane where he had met Colonel Gould the night before. Matthew's relief was not so much at being free of Crawford Manor and its treacherous mistress as at finding that he could, after all, trust Sybil. He had thought that perhaps she had been sent to prevent him from leaving Crawford Manor with herself and her father as his prisoners. It would have been a clever trick to get him into her power so that she could deliver him to some of the Roundheads who no doubt were lurking in the neighbourhood. And Matthew had felt very uneasy lest he had played into the Quares' hands by accepting Sybil's story.
But it seemed that the girl had spoken the truth; at least there was no sign that she was going to betray him.
She sat down on the bank where the strong green weeds were growing thickly, and sighed with fatigue and excitement.
"I suppose you feel," said Matthew, looking at her rather ruefully, "like I did when I told Colonel Gould that your father was an Italian, and never gave you away? I mean, you feel as if you had betrayed your side. I did. I felt as if I'd put my feeling of compassion towards you before my feeling of loyalty to the King."
Matthew spoke rather stiffly; he was a little uneasy, for he and Sybil seemed always at cross-purposes. He could understand so well the impulse of pity that had made her save him. Now they were both of them in rather a strange position.
Sybil did not answer his question. She sat with her head propped in her hands. Then she answered in her rather dry manner:
"It wouldn't much have mattered if you had betrayed us to Colonel Gould. I wished you had, then Mistress Gould would have seen that we were set free and we should all have been on the level again. Now, as it is, we are in a tangle."
"We certainly are," agreed Matthew, "and you'll have to come with me to London. You've no money, I suppose, and don't know where to go?"
"Of course I don't," said Sybil. "I can't go back to the Manor House, can I? What would Mrs. Gould and Jamieson say of me?"
"Did your father know that you were going to try and save me?" asked the boy.
"Never mind," said Sybil, "I don't want to talk about it. I'll come with you to London. I've a number of friends there. I'm quite as clever as you are, really," she added proudly. "Please let us get upon our way."
"I don't know how we're going to get to London," said Matthew as she rose and they left the lane together. "You see, we have no horses and most of my money was in the baggage."
"That was a stupid place to keep it," said Sybil, "I always keep mine upon me. The gold piece I had I left behind with Mrs. Wood to buy things for my father and therefore I've nothing at all."
"Oh, I've got some," said Matthew, "but not enough to hire horses to London and leave much for us. I've got to keep something for our food and for chance needs."
"Well, then, we must walk, I suppose," said Sybil. "Could you sell the trumpet? I can see it sticking up on your back."
Matthew could not help laughing. They had now turned out of the lane on to the high road that lay white and glimmering before them in the increasing light.
"You're certainly a brave little girl," he conceded. "Nothing seems to put you out. I wonder if there's anything you wouldn't undertake. But I don't think we ought to walk. Although it's not very far it would take us a long time to walk there. Let us go to the next inn and see if we can get a stage waggon."
"They are very uncomfortable," objected Sybil, wrinkling her nose.
"Oh, I daresay," smiled Matthew, mischievously, "but then if you are so brave and stout you won't mind a little inconvenience like that. A spy has to put up with a great deal."
They proceeded about a couple of miles in silence and at no great pace along the road, meeting no one except a farm labourer with a lantern returning across the fields from attending a sick cow.
Then they came upon an inn of some pretensions, with the sign "The Jolly Miller" showing outside. Matthew went in and asked the host, who was preparing breakfast for a motley crowd of people in the inn parlour, if the stage was passing through soon, for he knew that these carrier's carts or stage waggons ran day and night between London and the towns nearby.
The host replied that the stage waggon was leaving the inn yard in another half-hour.
"Good," said Matthew. "Meanwhile, will you give me and my sister some breakfast?"
And he said glibly that they came from a neighbouring manor house and were going to London to stay with relatives.
They were not questioned further. The host of "The Jolly Miller" was, like everyone else, used to a topsy-turvy kind of world and not given to concerning himself with his travellers, however unlikely they seemed.
The big, fresh-faced boy and the pale little girl sat down at the end of the long table and were served with ham and eggs and a mug of beer for Matthew.
Sybil conducted herself very well and Matthew noted that she seemed quite in good spirits and he wondered if she intended even now to play some trick upon him.
He certainly did not mean to stand by and see her succeed, for he was quite sure that she had not given up her attempts to get the jewels, and he smiled to himself, for surely she would never think, although she might be very sharp and clever, that the diamonds were concealed in the trumpet that he wore strapped to his side.
The fine, shining instrument with the embroidered cover was the cause of casual comment among some of the people who were gathered about the table. They were farmers taking country produce, eggs, chickens, and cheeses, up to London, poor folk who were going to the capital as either servants or apprentices, a quack doctor with his sly-looking assistant and his pack of medicines, and a young clergyman.
Some of these were travelling with hired horses. The quack, a big fat man, the slender clergyman, and an old woman with a large basket of poultry shared the waggon with Sybil and Matthew. This was a large, comfortable vehicle with a canvas hood fastened on hoops, wide wheels, and four horses.
The waggoner, who wore a smock stitched with red cotton and a broad-leaved hat and leggings, sat up in the front, the quack doctor beside him on the driver's seat. Inside there was, running either side of the interior of the waggon, a bench for the passengers, and in the middle was a medley of boxes, baskets, bundles, and country produce.
The clumsy stage waggon proceeded very slowly along the rough roads; it stopped almost every few yards to pick up some vegetables, honey, eggs, or butter that had been left in the hedge by a cottage or farm, or to accept a parcel from a woman or child who was waiting on the roadside.
Sybil soon began to nod and yawn on her seat and it did not take much inducement on Matthew's part to make her curl up on the straw at the bottom of the waggon and go to sleep, comfortable and easy as a little cat, among the bales of goods that were going to London.
Matthew regarded his fellow passengers shrewdly. He wondered if he should risk showing or mentioning the White Swan. One of them might so easily be a Royalist agent who could give him great help.
"Not," he thought hastily, "that I need much help now. Surely, as soon as I am in London I shall be safe. Mr. Knibbs can tell me where the King is, or, at least, what to do next."
But the boy knew that he must have missed the agents of the King who were waiting for him with horses at the three inns where he should have stopped, and he would have liked to have been able to tell them what had happened to him.
It was quite possible that there had been one of these agents at the inn, "The Jolly Miller," where they had taken the stage waggon, but Matthew had not liked, under so many strange eyes, to try and find out if this were so.
Since the adventure of Crawford Manor he was extremely wary and did not intend to trust anyone until he was quite sure of him—or her—as the case might be.
The old woman and the clergyman began to talk about the times, the sad troubles all were plunged into because of the Civil War, and Matthew, listening to their conversation, decided that unless they were acting very well they were staunch Puritans and it was no good expecting one of them to be a Loyalist in disguise.
Suddenly the clergyman, a bilious-looking young man with a yellow face and long dark-brown hair, turned to Matthew and said:
"I see, young sir, you carry a trumpet. It is a noble looking instrument and of seemly shape."
Matthew had had to re-arrange his story of being Paul Dubois, travelling from M. Morand of Paris to Mr. Knibbs of London, for he had at the inn given himself out as the brother of the little girl and, of course, he did not know who had overheard him. It had been so much easier to do that than to tell the tale that he was a Frenchman in charge of a returning exile, though that case had been good enough when they started.
So he answered, as indifferently as he could, "Yes, I am hoping to learn the instrument, and so I am going to Mr. Knibbs, in St. Paul's Churchyard, to take some lessons. I hope, too, he will engage me as an apprentice."
The clergyman stroked his chin and looked doubtfully, first at the young man and then at the instrument.
"You are a stout young fellow to be considering such an idle course of life," he remarked sourly. "Why don't you enlist in the army? Indeed, I don't know how you've escaped doing so."
Co
"Perhaps I shall," smiled Matthew, truthfully enough, though he did not mean the army of General Cromwell but that of the King, "when I have gone through with this business I have in hand."
"What is your business?" asked the clergyman inquisitively, and Matthew was forced to make up a story.
"Well, not only do I hope to become apprenticed to Mr. Knibbs, as I told you, but my mother has died recently and I have to take my sister and place her with relatives in London. So you see, sir, all my little affairs are in a confusion at once."
He was wondering if there was some meaning behind the clergyman's inquiry, and he put his hand in his pocket and his fingers closed round the emblem of the White Swan. Should he show it, as if casually? But he did not venture to do so. If the man was not a Royalist agent he would think it strange and perhaps suspect the truth.
So Matthew sat quiet on the hard bench and soon he too began to yawn and his head nodded on his breast. But he was too wary to go to sleep completely and his fingers never left the strap that held the trumpet on his shoulders.
THE sun was high in the pale spring sky when the stage waggon reached the outskirts of London, passing through fields where the hop poles had been set in the ground and the ploughed land showed here and there among the green pastures on which the sheep and lambs wandered.
"It looks peaceful, doesn't it?" remarked Matthew wistfully. "You would not think there was a great war raging."
"You would think so if you went to some parts of the country," replied the clergyman grimly. "I have seen it where it seems to have been ploughed and sown with salt."
The clumsy waggon lumbered into the paved streets of London and Matthew saw the once familiar scenes again about him with a thrill of excitement. He had often been to London before the troubles began, for his father was frequently at Court.
Under the rule of Parliament the capital had taken on a sombre air; everything that savoured of merrymaking or gaiety had been forbidden. The theatres and the places of entertainment were closed, there was not as much as a puppet show or a jack-o'-the-Green in the streets. The taverns had a sober look, there were no singers or players about, the doorways. The attire of the citizens was of the plainest kind—the women in grey with linen bands, the men in black and brown with cropped hair and steeple-crowned hats.
Matthew, who was seated near the entrance to the waggon so that he could see out by peering round the hoops and canvas, observed that many of the shops were closed; many of the churches were, he knew, shut also, or else deprived of all ornaments and given over to the Puritans. Altogether, the place looked mournful and half-deserted: all who were of Royalist sympathy had fled and their property was either shut up or confiscated, while a number of men-at-arms, part of the numerous garrison, were walking about the streets in their leather and steel uniforms.
The stage waggon journey came to an end in the large courtyard of an inn on Ludgate Hill.
"You will not have far to go to Mr. Knibbs's shop," said the clergyman, when the ladder was put up against the waggon and the weary passengers began to descend. "He must be a busy man. I know him well. He makes all the trumpets for General Cromwell's army."
Matthew did not know if there was an invitation to a confidence in this or not. But he decided not to trust the clergyman.
He woke Sybil, who sat up in the straw yawning, flushed with sleep, and surprised; she looked very young and innocent.
"Come," grinned the boy kindly, "you ought to feel better now. We'll go in and have some dinner here, and then there really will be an end of our journey."
"For you, perhaps," yawned Sybil, getting to her feet and moving her limbs stiffly, "but what is to become of me?"
"Oh, I expect you'll be able to tell me where I can take you," answered Matthew. "I shall have plenty of time once I have delivered my message to Mr. Knibbs."
He felt a sense of relief as well as of excitement.
After all, he would have a good tale to tell his father; it had been a fine adventure and the fact that it had been here and there difficult added, now that he looked back at it, to its charm. He was pleased, too, in a way, that he had been able to be of service to little Sybil Quare and her father. He liked the child very much; she was, he thought, a pretty little darling and after all he could not blame her for the trouble she took to serve her cause. She had not cheated or deceived him any more than he was trying to cheat and deceive others. It was all part of the game.
So he had a smile on his face as they took their seat at the board in the sanded parlour, and he paid out almost the last of his money for the good meal that the drawer put before them.
Sybil did not eat much. She seemed rather downcast.
"The end of the adventure is not so good for me as it is for you," she reminded him. "Father and I have lost; you, I suppose, have won."
She added curiously: "You might as well tell me now, for it can't do you any harm, what will you do when you have seen Mr. Knibbs?"
"I don't know," admitted Matthew, frankly, glad to be able to tell the truth. "He will give me my instructions. Perhaps I will have to go to the camp of King Charles. And I couldn't take you, of course," he added when he had swallowed his bread and cheese.
"Why?" demanded Sybil, looking up from the piece of bread that she was cutting rather daintily.
"Why! That's a strange thing to ask! First, because you're a girl; and second, because you're a Puritan, or a Roundhead, or whatever you call yourself," he smiled swiftly.
"Don't speak so loud," rebuked Sybil, though Matthew had only whispered and they were alone at the table. "We might be overheard."
"Well, even if we were, I think I am more likely to get into trouble than you are, seeing the Puritans have got London. I don't think it would be very difficult, even now, Sybil, for you to deliver me up to your soldiers and have me hanged as a spy."
"You know," said the child earnestly, "I would not and could not do that. Come, I had a good sleep in the waggon, and though I feel a little stiff from the jolting, I'm really all right. Let us go to Mr. Knibbs."
"Very well," smiled Matthew, pleased with her spirit, "you know my destination, so it can't do any harm to take you there. But mind you, you won't see anything."
"I want to wash my face and comb my hair first," said Sybil with dignity. "I've got very untidy during my journey."
Matthew could not mark any disorder in her dress; she was a very prim little person and her grey cloth gown, her brown cloak and hood, and even her white cuffs and band were scrupulously neat. He did not much like letting her out of his sight and he looked after her with some misgiving as she went upstairs with the hostess.
But she soon came down again, her face rosy and shining, her hair combed into glossy, dark ringlets, her doeskin gloves drawn neatly over her small hands. She was a tall, well-grown girl and looked older than her twelve years.
Matthew looked at her with some admiration and thought wit at a pity it was that she was on the wrong side!
If she had been a Royalist maiden how useful she would be with so much courage, dignity, and daring—in the service of the Queen. And what a charming companion for the lonely Henrietta Maria in her poor Paris lodgings would a girl like this be!
Matthew rose with a sigh and the two of them left the inn and came out into the wide, cobbled coachyard where private carriages, pack-horses, riding-horses, and the stage waggon from Kent were all waiting together while the ostlers and grooms moved about with pails of water for the horses and pots of beer for the departing travellers.
Sybil and Matthew briskly climbed the hill towards the Cathedral that looked enormous above the huddle of houses with their overhanging tops and shadowed doorways. The tower rose high into the cloudless sky and as they approached the porch they saw that it was even now thronged by a medley of strange characters.
Formerly the doors of the great Church had always stood open, stalls had been set up down the nave and all kinds of people went there to do their business or to meet one another. It was quite a fashionable thing to make an appointment for the nave of St. Paul's. Outside St. Paul's Cross there had always been a knot of people, for this was a favourite place for public speakers and such as had a wrong or a grievance to talk about. And there never wanted idlers to gather to listen to these wiseacres.
Now this had been much changed; the vast church had a more sober, more decent air. There was no one talking at the base of the Gross and the crowd that still hung about was quiet and restrained in looks, words, and gestures, while two or three burly Parliamentary soldiers walked up and down with a severe eye for any possible disturbance.
Matthew had the curiosity to look into the interior of the Cathedral that he could remember as a child so rich and beautiful. It was now stripped bare of all ornaments; the very altar had gone. But so, too, had the stalls and booths and Matthew had to admit that though St. Paul's was now more like a meeting-house than a church it was more seemly in appearance.
Passing through the churchyard where trees just swelling into bud grew among the tombs, they came to the little alley where Henry Knibbs had his brass instrument maker's shop. And Matthew's heart swelled with joy and pride to think that at last he had reached the end of his journey, while he fingered the strap that fastened the trumpet to his back.
"Mrs. Knibbs," he said generously to Sybil, "makes very good comfits, and I will ask her to give you some. Perhaps," he added, mischievously, "you would like to stay with these good people if I am sent on a mission to the King at Oxford or in his camp?"
"Oh, no," replied the little girl, "for that would mean that I would really be a prisoner, wouldn't it?"
"I suppose you made some arrangement with your father," smiled Matthew, "as to where you were to meet him?"
"I am not going to tell you about my arrangements," she replied with dignity. "Look, here is the shop, I can see the sign of the gilt trumpet hanging outside."
"It is made of pieces of cork," Matthew told her, "put together very carefully and painted. It's quite fine, is it not?"
But as he approached the shop he felt his heart, that had been so light, grow heavy with dismay, for there were shutters over the bow window that he remembered sparkling with small panes of glass.
"Why, what is this?" he cried. "Some holiday?"
"Nay, it is no holiday," said Sybil, who seemed as surprised as he was. "But, pray, knock at the door. Your good friend will no doubt come himself and explain."
So Matthew, with some alarm, went to the door and raised the great iron knocker that hung there and struck it down handsomely several times.
There was no answer.
He then looked up at the latticed window above the shop, desperately hoping that Mrs. Knibbs or her husband would hear the knocking and look out from the closed window above.
But no, the window, though not shuttered, remained blank.
"I don't think there is anyone within," said Sybil.
And Matthew was forced to believe that she was right.
He knocked again and again, walking round the bow window of the shop, even trying the iron stanchion that held the shutters into place, until a window above a bookshop opposite was thrown open and an old man stuck out his head and demanded peevishly what all the noise was?
"I have business with Mr. Henry Knibbs," said Matthew with dignity. "Is he away? Or sick?"
"I don't know what's become of him," replied the old man. "He disappeared about a week ago. I suppose he has business elsewhere."
With that he pulled the casement to and went back to the little printing-press that he was working.
Matthew was confounded. He really did not know what to do now. Something had gone wrong.
"You never thought of this, did you?" said Sybil, but her tone sounded one more of sympathy than of pleasure. "Indeed," she added hastily, "I really am sorry, although it's against my interests to pity you."
"Well, I am sorry, too," admitted Matthew with a sigh. "I don't know what to do now. I'll have to try to reach 'the King,'" he was going to say, but checked himself, and added—"my journey's end by myself."
The boy began to turn over in his mind all the people whom he knew in London. Surely one of them would be there? But he could see for himself that the capital had changed a good deal since he had last been in it. No doubt all the Royalists had fled or remained very close under, perhaps, assumed names. No doubt he would find their houses shut up.
What was he to do? He was at the end of his money, and he had, too, Sybil on his hands—unless she was able to look after herself. He gazed down at her with a frown; she stood peering up at him, just as if she wanted to help.
"I wonder what could have happened?" she pondered shrewdly. "Your father thought that it was all right with Mr. Knibbs, or he: wouldn't have sent you. And that's not so many days ago. What about your message?"
"Let us leave the alley," said Matthew, forlornly, "where every word we say may be overheard."
He took the child's hand and they came out of the alley again into St. Paul's Churchyard. There they sat on an altar-tomb, dangling their heels and staring in front of them.
"I suppose," said Matthew, sadly, "it was discovered that Mr. Knibbs was working for the King. But it couldn't have been discovered that he was expecting me or there would have been someone there waiting for me."
"Is your message so important as all that?" said Sybil curiously.
Matthew could not help laughing at her persistence, even though he felt very far from merriment.
"Yes, my message is quite important, but you're not going to find out what it is. Now I think that the first thing I had better do is to dispose of you, my dear. Tell me where I can take you, and then when I am free I will set to work and attend to my own business."
Sybil reflected as if she was considering a grave matter.
"I don't know that it would be safe for you to go anywhere among my friends," she said at last. "What sort of tale should I tell them?"
"I don't know," said Matthew. "You seem quite good at thinking of things."
SO the boy and girl sat there side by side and presently through their brooding they became aware of a group of people the other side of the churchyard who were listening to a quack doctor.
He was raised upon a stool that had been set down by his attendant and in the black robes and pointed cap of a learned professor he looked a fine figure of a man, for a long white beard fell over his chest. His features were aquiline and dignified, his eyes still clear and bright, his cheeks rosy and firm; he was a big, heavy fellow.
In a way so as not to attract much attention and yet with sufficient force to gather a few people round him, he was talking about the wonders of the medicines he was selling. His attendant had opened a pack and placed it on the ground and from this he was handing up various bottles to the professor, who held them between finger and thumb against the light while he cried out:
"This will cure the toothache. That will cure the backache. This is excellent for a green wound. This will cure the headache," and so on until he had run through almost all the illnesses there are in existence.
"It's strange he's allowed," said Sybil gravely. "He will be sent away when the soldiers notice him. You see, they don't have this sort of people now."
"He is the man who was in the waggon with us," remarked Matthew indifferently. "I suppose he's got to make his living like anyone else."
He then rose and cried resolutely:
"Well, Sybil, I've decided. I've got to take you first to your friends, and then I must try my own fortunes."
"What! Without money, and not knowing where to go?" said the girl, jumping from the tomb and putting her hand confidingly in his. "You know, I'd rather like to stay with you."
"I daresay you would—to try and find out what my message is and to get it from me," smiled Matthew. "But you are a very clever young gentlewoman and I'd rather not have your company, if you don't mind."
Sybil looked disappointed.
"Very well," she sighed. "I can tell you where you can take me, though it is rather a long way. And if you have no money I suppose we shall have to walk."
"I suppose we shall," answered Matthew grimly, "but we can go slowly, and perhaps if we get very tired someone will take pity on us and give us a lift in a waggon or a carriage."
As they were leaving the churchyard they came close to the little crowd gathered round the quack doctor.
He had now got down from his stool and was passing from one person to another, showing the little bottles of yellow, purple, and green liquid that he held. Several people had, rather sheepishly, made purchases and slunk away with the elixir in their pouches.
"Ah, you, young sir," cried the quack, suddenly seizing Matthew by the sleeve. "You no doubt are a soldier, or will be soon, despite your tender years. Come, I have the very thing for you—a salve that will cure your wounds, prevent them festering, and banish fever."
Matthew tried to disengage himself, saying:
"Reverend sir, or learned doctor, whichever you are, I have no money to spend on medicines. My fortune is indeed in my sword only."
But the quack, in showing Matthew the bottle, had also shown him a small ivory Swan in the palm of his fat, pink hand.
Matthew felt a wave of relief surge over him. He had not time to speak before the quack said:
"To a gallant young soldier like yourself I will make no charge. Accept the salve as a gift. All I ask is that you should tell your fellow soldiers of its virtues."
"Well, sir, on those terms I can't refuse," cried Matthew with a grin. He had seen that a scrap of paper, on which was some writing, was round the bottle.
He looked round the crowd to give himself an indifferent air, and flung out with a laugh and a wink:
"I don't suppose it can do any harm if it can't do any good."
With that he took Sybil's hand and they left the crowd together.
"Queer," said the little girl sharply, "that he should have given you the medicine."
"These vagabonds often do that," said Matthew, with assumed carelessness, "just to induce others to buy, you know. I don't suppose it's anything more than coloured water. Now, where do you want me to take you?"
"Well," answered Sybil merrily, "T have an uncle who lives at Highgate. He would always be glad to see me. He keeps a school for teaching Latin."
"Highgate is a long way," said Matthew, who was longing for an opportunity to read what was written on the paper: probably there was some appointment written there that he would have to keep. "But I daresay there is someone at the inn who is going there and to whom I could entrust you."
"Well," said Sybil, "I don't care about that idea. I don't want to travel with strangers. I know someone who lives a little nearer. He keeps a little bookseller's shop—the sign of the 'Green Quill' in the Strand."
"Very well, I will see if I can find that."
"What is written on your medicine bottle?" asked Sybil, rather mischievously, as she trotted along beside the boy.
"You are a young gentlewoman who sees a good deal," cried Matthew, with a rueful look.
"Well, you don't suppose that I was deceived, do you?" asked Sybil. "Of course there was a message, and the quack was just a friend of yours in disguise."
"He's certainly not a friend of mine," Matthew was able to answer truthfully. "I am sure I have not seen him before."
"But in disguise, I said," smiled Sybil. "But I daresay if he had taken off that strange hat and beard he had you would have known him. Pray don't take any heed of me, but read your message."
At that challenge, Matthew did so. Withdrawing into the doorway of one of the fine shops on Ludgate Hill he carefully read the fine writing-on the label pasted on the bottle of greenish liquid.
And this, instead of telling how the medicine was to be used, stated: "One who will give you instructions will be in the little house by the Physic Garden at Chelsea at four o'clock this afternoon."
Matthew felt greatly relieved despite his fatigue and excitement and all the difficulties that still confronted him. Here he would get advice and help; the Royalists had kept in touch with him. He felt grateful to them for doing so; he had not, then, been abandoned, and though he had met with so many strange adventures, someone must have been watching over him. Perhaps Colonel Gould had heard of his plight, and discovered Mrs. Gould's treachery.
"Sybil," he said earnestly, "I think I can trust you as far as this—to tell you that I must go to Chelsea to get instructions."
"Are you sure it's not a trap?" asked the girl, and he really believed that her concern for him was sincere.
"I don't think so," he answered seriously. "In any case, I've got to take a chance. And then when we have been there I will go with you to your uncle in Highgate, or to any other place you want to go to."
The girl seemed indifferent as to what was going to happen to herself.
"Chelsea is not so very far," she said, "and I am sure we could walk there. Let us get down by the river and follow the Strand."
But Matthew knew that it was a fair distance from St. Paul's Church to the Physic Garden at Chelsea; and though it was nothing much for him to undertake, he thought that it would tire Sybil out.
She had had a very fatiguing journey since they had left The Windflower at Dover, and he felt that it was his duty to look after her; she was a girl even if she was an enemy.
"Let us go down to St. Paul's Steps," he suggested. "Perhaps among the watermen there will be one who will take us for nothing."
"Very well," said the little girl. "I don't mind where we go. This is quite an adventure, is it not?" she added happily, and with a pretty air of confidence she tucked her small hand into his strong fingers.
They turned down from the churchyard through a winding street where the overhanging tops of the houses were so close together that people leaning out of opposite windows could have shaken hands. It was not a very pleasant little street, for the gutter in the middle was full of refuse and dirty liquid, and an unsavoury scent arose.
Matthew and Sybil hurried along over the cobbles and they were glad when they saw the waters of the Thames, now a placid grey colour, before them.
A large number of watermen waiting for people to hire them lounged about the quay and the steps, a few ragged boys, bare-footed and barelegged, were playing about in the mud looking for odd coins or any object of value, however trifling, that customers of the watermen might have dropped.
The Thames, as both Matthew and Sybil knew, was the great high street of London and there was more traffic on the river than on all the other streets put together.
As soon as the boy and girl appeared half a dozen watermen held up their hands, asking if they wanted a pair of oars, four oars, or a boat to row themselves.
Now as Matthew had not a single penny with which to hire a boat or pay a waterman he had to resort to a desperate plan.
He took the White Swan out of his pocket and asked Sybil if she had a cord or string about her dress anywhere. She at once produced one from the lacing of her glove, and Matthew put this through the hole at the top of the tiny white emblem and hung it round his neck.
He then walked among the group of shouting watermen, saying, in a loud cool voice:
"I have a particular friend here whom I want for my business. As soon as he sees me, he'll know me for sure."
And he added, glancing all round the swarthy, weather-beaten faces: "This man will remember Captain Hitchcock of The Windflower."
Matthew's plan was more successful than he had dared to hope it would be. Almost at once one of the men, a tall, hearty-looking fellow with a face beaten purple-colour by wind and rain, cried:
"I'm your man, sir. Where do the young lady and you wish to go?"
The other watermen, seeing that the fare had been secured, turned aside to some other passengers who were descending the steps, and Matthew was able to whisper quickly to the man:
"The White Swan, do you know it?"
"Yes, at once, sir. I stay here to keep a look out for anyone on your business."
"I want to go to Chelsea. Take me to Chelsea Reach," said Matthew, helping Sybil into the boat. "I've no money to pay you," he added, still whispering. "Things have gone amiss with me, but I've got my papers safe and sound and they must be delivered as soon as possible."
"No matter for the payment, sir," said the waterman as the two of them took their seats in his wide boat, "that is all arranged for."
Then, as with a few skilful strokes of his stout oars he sent them out upon the grey river, he added out loud:
"In His Majesty's service, I am ready like you, sir, to risk everything."
He seemed discreet as well as a loyal fellow, for he made no questions as to Matthew's business nor any comment on the presence of the little girl, though as Matthew thought, "he must think it strange to see me on an important errand with a child with me."
But truly Sybil was no ordinary child. Grave and self-controlled, her eyes bright with intelligence, her hands folded in the lap of her grey skirt, she sat primly in the boat, the wind lifting the dark curls that escaped from under her white linen bonnet.
"What a pity," thought Matthew, again looking at her with approval, "she is not a Cavalier maiden instead of a Roundhead's daughter."
To pass the time and relieve his own impatience, for he was eager to be at the Chelsea Physic Garden and to learn his further instructions, he asked the waterman:
"Do you know what has become of Mr. Knibbs who was the brass instrument maker who lived in St. Paul's Churchyard?"
"And a bit more than that, sir," cried the waterman with a knowing wink. "A good friend to His Majesty, God bless him."
"Yes, I suppose that was the trouble," said Matthew sombrely. "They found out his real business."
"Why, his real business was brass instrument making all right," grinned the sturdy waterman. "There was none in the whole country could make a finer trumpet than he, an instrument rather different from the one you have on your back, sir; I see that is a French make."
"And I see you know something about the trade," smiled Matthew.
"Oh, yes, I've been to and from Mr. Knibbs's shop with messages before now. It's not so easy managing things now the rebels are in London. But we did pretty well—letters in invisible ink, you understand. And orders for hearing-horns and flageolets conveyed a message in cypher."
"But what became of him?" asked Matthew. "You see, when I left Paris he was evidently still unsuspected, because I was directed to him. Then when I reached the place I found the shop shut and that ruined all my plans."
"I don't know," admitted the waterman sombrely, bending to his oars. "I was up there a day or two ago myself—not that I had any business, but I wanted to see that he was all right. And the shutters were up and the place closed."
"Well, it is a great misfortune," said Matthew, "and I hope no ill has befallen him, for he was a friend of my father's and another man, M. Morand of Paris, of whom I am very fond."
He found that he was speaking quite naturally and frankly in front of Sybil. He thought that in her he had a friend, and, though she was bound to the other side, that she would not betray him.
She gave him a quick look that he believed was full of gratitude for his trust.
It did not seem long before the boat came to Chelsea Stairs.
There the boy and girl got ashore and Matthew warmly thanked the loyal and friendly waterman.
"Give me your name," he said. "I wish to recommend to His Majesty all who have helped me."
Upon which the man said that he was known as "Old Miles" and that he had been in the good old days in the Royal service, one of the bargemen who had been used to take the King in the Royal barge from Whitehall.
"Ay, and the Queen, too, God bless her, to the riverside palaces at Greenwich or Richmond. And though," he added, "I've lost my employment, I hope I've not lost my loyalty. Just say, sir, if you're good enough to speak for me, that Old Miles helped you as soon as he saw the White Swan badge."
With that they took leave of the friendly fellow and passed along Chelsea Reaches until they came to the Physic Gardens, where all the herbs were beginning to bloom and to fill the air with an agreeable odour.
THE Physic Gardens belonged to the Royal Palace at Chelsea that was now closed up and half in ruins. The King's Gardener and the King's Physician had always kept the garden well stocked with any herbs that might be useful for medicines or healing. The Republicans saw the use of this garden and they had, when London fell into their hands, kept it up.
A fine brick wall, rosy-coloured in the April sunshine, surrounded it: there were handsome gates in white stone piers and iron scroll-work, and behind them grew a mulberry tree, now covered with small green leaves. Beyond the wall of the Physic Garden was a little mansion, red brick and white stone faced, in which lived the Keeper and his assistants, or so Matthew supposed; at any rate, this was clearly the house at which he was meant to call.
Then the boy looked with a last lingering doubt at Sybil. She was really finding out a great deal, perhaps too much, but as he could not leave her in the street—this was a peaceful part of the world but it was not a peaceful time, and who knew what danger might not be lurking round the corner—he decided that he would have to trust her to the utmost.
"Sybil," he said earnestly, "you will not play any more tricks on me, will you? You see, it really would not be fair."
"I don't know about that," said the girl with a smile. "I suppose it really would be quite fair for me to do anything I could to get from you whatever it is you're taking so much trouble to deliver. Remember what I told you before—if you are working for your father, I am working for mine."
"I saved your father's life and your own at Crawford Manor," said Matthew, but he was sorry he had said this for the girl countered instantly:
"And I saved yours at the same place, so I suppose we are quits."
He stood hesitant before the door of the little house, and she gave a quiet little smile, saying:
"Very well, Matthew, I'll promise. I won't play any more tricks. And when we part—as we soon must—we shall still be, I hope, friends."
With that Matthew raised the heavy iron knocker and struck the door.
It was opened almost immediately (the clock in Chelsea Church was just striking four) by the doctor of St. Paul's Churchyard.
"Come in, young sir, come in," he said, "and the little gentlewoman too."
As soon as they had entered the small house the quack doctor closed the door, saying with a laugh:
"You have been quick. I have only just got here myself, and I had a smart cob. I have not had time to remove my disguise."
They followed him into a parlour at the back of the house that had a glass door that opened on to the herb garden. This was open now and the room was full of pale sunshine. It was a pleasant and fragrant little apartment; white and pink and lavender-coloured pottery jars with Latin names on them in gilt lettering stood on the shelves that lined the walls, side by side with large books bound in calf from which hung emerald-green markers.
A dried crocodile, or large lizard, Matthew did not know which, hung from the ceiling, and in several cases that stood about the floor were pots and jars of dried and pounded herbs that were giving out the fragrance that filled the room.
The quack doctor looked shrewdly from Matthew to the little girl.
"I did not have it in my instructions that you were to have a companion," he remarked.
And Matthew answered with a boldness he did not feel:
"Chance put the little maiden in my way. Her father was wounded in a wayside attack as we were coming from Dover to London and I have to deliver her to her friends at Highgate."
"Perhaps it would have been wiser to have done that before you came here," said the quack doctor. "However, one supposes," he added with a smile, "that she is of too tender years to be either curious or indiscreet. Will you please, young gentlewoman," he added kindly, "go wander among the herbs in the garden while I speak to your friend?"
Sybil had no choice but to obey; whether she would have liked to stay and listen to Matthew's business he could not tell, but she tripped out at once into the garden. A quick and anxious glance told Matthew that she would not be able to escape, for the high brick walls went completely round the Physic Garden.
Perhaps the quack doctor read his thoughts, for he smiled too.
"I only said that as a blind," he remarked. "I don't think these days anyone is too young and innocent-seeming to be dangerous. Why, I have known a dangerous message sent in a baby's cap."
"I have not trusted her any more than I had to," Matthew assured him earnestly. "I won't give you an account of my adventures now, it would take too long, and I suppose you've got business for me."
"First of all I want to know what business you've got for me. I see you're wearing the White Swan round your neck—no need, then, to ask for that as a password."
Matthew blushed.
"It was careless of me not to put it away again. I took it out because I had to find a waterman who was loyal. One who brought us here without any pay was Old Miles who used to row the King's barge. I hope his loyalty will be remembered to him, for he takes a risk."
The quack doctor nodded.
"I know Old Miles well, but I don't suppose he would know me in my present disguise. You were directed by your father, Colonel Jaye, and M. Morand, to Mr. Knibbs, the master trumpeter, in St. Paul's Churchyard, were you not?"
"Yes," said Matthew eagerly, "but when I got there I found the shutters up and the place closed. What has happened to Mr. Knibbs?"
"I am Mr. Knibbs," said the quack doctor, pulling off the grey beard and then removing his conical hat and showing a lean, shrewd, humorous face. "I found that I was being watched, I was warned that I should be any moment arrested. So I sent my wife and daughter into the country with relatives and I disappeared myself, so that when the Puritans came to search, my shop they found that I had flown."
"So you are Mr. Knibbs!" exclaimed Matthew. "How thankful I am to meet you at last! But what are you doing here, sir, in this house by the Physic Garden?"
"Dr. Jeffreys, who lives here," explained Mr. Knibbs quickly, "is a friend of mine, and he willingly gave me shelter, and allows me to use the house as often as I will. He has many strange visitors: wandering physicians come to buy their stuff here, so no comment is excited by my appearance. Besides, he is not suspected or watched—yet," added Mr. Knibbs, significantly. "But it must be confessed that the rebels are becoming very careful and it will soon be difficult for us to carry on our work."
Mr. Knibbs then, lowering his voice, asked anxiously if Matthew had the jewels.
"They are here," replied the boy with pride.
He unstrapped the trumpet from his back and laid it on the table.
"A fine instrument!" exclaimed Mr. Knibbs with professional interest. "And of the French model."
Matthew then told him of the commission he had for him to make the instruments for the French King's Trumpeters.
"I shall not be able to undertake that now," replied the musician regretfully. "It would have given me great pleasure to do that for His French Majesty, who has, I understand, sent his jewels to help King Charles."
Matthew then took the cover off the mouth of the trumpet and poured on to the table the diamonds, then put his hand into his doublet and brought out the emerald cross.
"Here they are, sir, intact, as they were given to me. Now what am I to do with them? I hope that you will take them into your charge and that I have seen the last of them. All I ask now is a few crowns to enable me to return to France and to put myself at my father's disposition. I am longing," he added, "to know how he is. He was attacked and nearly killed in the streets and was sorely sick when I left him. Yet, better still, I should like to be allowed to join the King."
Mr. Knibbs eyed the diamonds with much satisfaction, taking them up in his lean, skilful fingers and letting them fall again so that the pale light flashed coloured fire from their facets.
"You have had some trouble on your journey," he said. "I have had news from Paris this morning, by one who came post haste. Your father is well, practically recovered. His one anxiety was to know of your safety. And now I shall be able to assure him of that with the next passenger who goes to France."
"I can be that next messenger myself, surely," said Matthew. "I have only that child to think of. When she is disposed with her relatives at Highgate I shall be free."
"I am glad to say, and you will be glad to hear," replied Mr. Knibbs, "that is not so. I have instructions for you that you are to take the jewels and deliver them directly into His Majesty's hands. They are far too valuable to be trusted," he added courteously, "to anyone but the messenger who has contrived to bring them so far."
Matthew flushed with pleasure. This was better news than any he had hoped for; his eyes sparkled.
"Of course," he cried impetuously, "if there is a chance of seeing His Majesty, I have no wish to return to France. I hope indeed," he added, "I may be considered worthy to remain and fight for the King."
"On this piece of paper," said Mr. Knibbs, "are written your instructions. You are to go as quickly and secretly as you can to His Majesty, who is now returned to Oxford, and to deliver the jewels into his hands. He will no doubt reward you with a pair of colours. You are old enough and stout enough to acquit yourself well in King Charles's service. But first you must have a little sleep and rest. As for the young gentlewoman, I will look after her. Mrs. Jeffreys is a kind woman. When the child is rested we will take her ourselves in a coach to Highgate."
Matthew could not hope for anything better than this arrangement.
"Under what guise am I to travel?" he asked. "As for rest and refreshment, I require very little of it. One good meal and an hour's repose and I shall be fit for anything."
"Well," smiled the brass instrument maker, "I think you had better travel as you did before as a young apprentice of a brass instrument maker. Don't use my name any longer as I am now suspect. There is one William Maston, a friend of mine, who is also a clever craftsman and a devoted Republican. Use his name until you reach the Cavalier lines. Then the password of the White Swan will get you through and you will be taken at once to His Majesty. As for the jewels, I do not think a safer hiding-place can be found than the trumpet. It was clever of you to think of that," he laughed, and he put the jewels back into the instrument and drew the little cap firmly over the mouth.
"Not a word before the young gentlewoman," said Matthew; "she does not know what I carry with me."
"No need to bother her with that knowledge," said Mr. Knibbs, and then he asked, without much interest, who and what the child was?
Matthew made up some tale that was partly the truth. He disliked very much having to deceive his kind and loyal friend, but he felt an even deeper loyalty towards Sybil. She had behaved well, considering who and what she was, and he considered himself in her debt still for the way in which she had saved his life at Crawford Manor.
Nor did Mr. Knibbs feel much concern about the child. There were so many cases like hers, of refugees and exiles coming and going between England and France.
MATTHEW went out into the herb garden and took a little peep into the arbour in the angle of the walls where Sybil sat. She looked rather mournful, he thought, and his heart went out to her. No doubt she was feeling tired and forlorn.
"Sybil," he announced joyfully, "we have come to the end of the adventure. These good people will take you safely to your relatives in Highgate and I hope you will soon have good news of your father."
"Yes, Highgate is where my father will come when he is recovered enough to leave Crawford Manor. And you, what is going to happen to you, Matthew?"
"I must go on and do my duty, as you will, I suppose!"
"I don't think I shall do any more of this kind of work," said the child primly. "You see, it is really rather tiring and one meets so much unpleasantness."
"It would certainly be better," grinned Matthew, "for you to stay at home and learn to sew and spin and embroider and make cakes, and be a good little gentlewoman. And then when this war is over you will find yourself' a very accomplished young person."
"I daresay home is my proper place, but I haven't got one," returned Sybil precisely, "and I don't care for staying with these people at Highgate much. As for your friends here, I don't know them and I don't trust them, and I don't want them to take me across London."
"Why, what harm do you think they could do you? I suppose you have guessed that they are Royalist agents. You must not tell them who you are. They will take you at once, this evening probably, to Highgate, and then all your troubles will be over."
"But I would rather," urged Sybil, "come with you. I think it only fair that we should finish this adventure together."
"The adventure is finished now," insisted Matthew.
"No, it is not," said Sybil, "because you have not yet delivered your message to the King."
"Why do you think that you could come with me into His Majesty's city of Oxford?"
"I don't see why not?" said Sybil. "It would be quite an exciting thing to do."
But Matthew did not listen to her arguments. Taking her hand he led her, and she came reluctantly, back into the house.
The two shared a pleasant meal that good Mrs. Jeffreys eagerly set before them.
Then Matthew went upstairs to an upper room where he rested for a while, the trumpet with its precious treasure strapped to his bed.
For the first time since he had left Paris his mind was sufficiently at ease for him to be able to enjoy a good sleep. And it was two or three hours later that he woke to find Mr. Knibbs, now in his usual habit, standing over him with a good-humoured smile.
"It is getting dusk and you must be on your way. I have a good horse at the door."
Matthew rose at once, bathed his face and hands free from the dust of the day's journey in the bowl of fresh water that Mr. Knibbs provided. Then he took a kind farewell of his host and hostess and went out into the pleasant dusk.
A few white stars were beginning to twinkle over the Thames. The lilac haze of evening lay over the market gardens and the fruit trees on the Battersea side of the river.
It was an agreeable prospect and Matthew's spirits soared. It was good to be young, to be on a mission for the King. And it was spring in England.
Matthew asked where Sybil was; he wanted to take farewell of her, for it was not likely that they would ever meet again.
But Mr. Knibbs told him that she had already left in a hired coach with Mrs. Jeffreys for Highgate.
Matthew was sorry about this, yet on the other hand he felt that perhaps it was as well not to disturb the little girl with any sad good-byes, for he was sure that she had taken an affection for him as he had for her. Indeed, if Sybil Quare, the Puritan maid, had been his sister, Matthew Jaye would have been well pleased.
Yet, for all this regret it was with a light heart that Matthew set. out on the last stage of his journey.
His instructions were that he was to travel all night and, as he could not reach the Royal headquarters at Oxford before dawn, to conceal himself somewhere during the next day and proceed at twilight.
The horse that Mr. Knibbs had given him was a fine bay and went at a smacking pace; Matthew had lightened his saddlebags and now carried little beyond the trumpet, some money that the brass instrument maker had given him, a knot of sweet-smelling herbs that Mrs. Jeffreys had stuck through the button-hole of his jerkin, and the White Swan, safe in the palm of his gauntlet.
Well, his adventure was nearly over! He could hope soon to be in the presence of the King, to tell his story to the royal ear, to put the jewels the Queen had sent into her husband's hands.
"There are some things, though, I cannot tell His Majesty," the boy said to himself. "About Sybil and her father—and about old Jamieson and Mrs. Gould. Yet I must make some excuse for my delays on the road."
He wondered if Colonel Gould had found out about the treachery of his wife and servant and if Mr. Quare had quite recovered from the effects of his wound, and if Nicko, the monkey, was well—then, "Heigho!" he said, "this is none of my business now!"
He rode for a while along the river that lay grey and placid, covered with barges and small craft and spreading round the landing-stages into pools fringed with reeds and alders.
At Chiswick he turned aside and took the West road. Everything was quiet, and, save for the troops of horse that now and then went briskly by on patrol, there was no sign of the civil war that tore the country.
After riding a few miles along the West road, Matthew noted with pleasure that he was now well clear of London and that the dark had not yet fallen.
So he felt that he might pause at a cheerful little wayside hostelry called "The Wheatsheaf," to bait his horse; he was taking good care of the animal for he hoped that it would see him on the whole of his journey, though he knew where to obtain another mount if need be. The names of Royalist agents and post houses were on his paper of instructions.
The name of "The Wheatsheaf" was not, however, on his paper, but still, Matthew thought, no harm could come to him through stopping here.
While his horse was being watered and rubbed down by the dull-faced, sandy-haired ostler, Matthew went into the little sanded parlour and asked for a mug of ale.
A small lamp had just been lit, for the room was darkened by the low ceiling and the tiny windows. But this light was enough for Matthew to see a clergyman or Puritan preacher, as he seemed to be, seated at a table, reading a news-sheet. He looked up and did not seem to recognize Matthew. The boy, however, felt a pang of fear. Was the man watching him, following him? It was strange that he had met him twice.
Certainly Sybil had not seemed to recognize him as a fellow spy. But Matthew knew that there must be many rebels working independently of one another at this game of defeating the activities of the Royalists. So he took his pot of beer out into the little inn yard, while the clergyman never looked up.
As Matthew was calling out for his horse, another cavalier, riding a sweating beast, came cluttering into the yard and shouted for the ostler.
Matthew knew him at once and went, as if casually, to his stirrup.
"Why, Colonel Gould," he whispered, "are you, too, for Oxford?"
The Royalist, who was in civilian attire, turned in the saddle with a quickly suppressed cry of pleasure.
"Hush, sir," said Matthew cautiously. "There is a preacher in there whom I don't trust."
"I have been following you," said Colonel Gould. "I arrived at the house by the Physic Garden just as you left. Matthew, how can I express my sorrow at what happened to you at Crawford Manor?"
"Pray, sir, do not let us speak of it." Matthew felt shy and sorry for his father's friend.
But the soldier rapidly told his tale, how he had found out his wife's treachery and the wickedness of old Jamieson, and come at once after Matthew. For Mr. Quare had told him how Sybil had helped the boy to escape.
"Quare is a fine fellow, though a Puritan," added the Colonel. "He, though still sick, rode with me to London to find his daughter."
"She is at Highgate, long before this," explained Matthew, but the Colonel laughed:
"No, she isn't, my boy! Mistress Jeffreys came back in a toss—the coach halted to allow a waggon to pass and the little girl jumped out and ran away."
"Where is she now, then?"
"No need to concern yourself. Her father told me that he and she had several secret meeting-places."
"You were friendly with him, then, sir?" asked Matthew shyly. "And did not betray him?"
"More the otjer way about," smiled the Colonel. "In London I was in enemy territory. Well, we agreed to a truce until we parted."
"I hope, sir, you have forgiven me for deceiving you by saying they were Italian mountebanks."
"I understand, Matthew, why you did so," answered the Colonel gravely. "That is what makes this war so piteous. We are all English and find it hard to fight, one against the other."
They had been talking in low tones, drinking the beer the drawer brought out to them, as if they were casual travellers, but Matthew had kept his eye on the inn window, where he could see the outline of the figure of the clergyman leaning against the panes and staring out into the dusk.
"Are you going to Oxford, too, sir?" asked Matthew.
"Yes, my poor wife—she meant no harm to you—only to steal your papers, Matthew—has been sent to my brother's house in Canterbury where she will do no more mischief, and Jamieson I hold prisoner."
"Then, we can ride together, sir," said Matthew, well pleased, and mounting the horse that was led out.
"By the way, what do you carry?" whispered Colonel Gould. "Letters from the Queen?"
"A message from the Queen," said Matthew. For he resolved not to tell about the jewels even to his faithful friend.
"Well, no need to carry that trumpet still, surely? You need no longer pretend to be Paul Dubois' son."
Before Matthew could think of a reply, the clergyman came suddenly out of the inn and ran up to the boy's horse, seizing the rein and crying out in a ranting tone: "Take care, young man, take care! The enemy is upon thee!"
"He is crazed!" shouted Colonel Gould, and leaping from the saddle struck the man a blow that sent him sprawling on the cobbles.
At the sound of the brawl, host, ostler, and drawer came running. There was confusion in the yard in the dark.
"Let us get on our way," said Colonel Gould, taking hold of Matthew's bridle. "The man may be a spy."
Matthew would have obeyed, for this was his thought, too, had he not chanced to see something white gleam in the open hand of the unconscious clergyman. In a second the boy had dismounted, and was kneeling beside the poor man, who had been so savagely struck down on the cobbles.
By the light of the lantern the ostler held, Matthew could see the tiny emblem of the White Swan. So, the seeming Puritan preacher was a Royalist agent and had been trying to speak to him when Colonel Gould had so mistakenly struck him! The cavalier had dismounted also.
"I am sorry I struck so hard," he said, "but I thought the fellow meant mischief."
"It is only a poor crazy preacher," said the host, "but he is knocked silly. We'll take him into the house. And maybe, sir, you would give us the money to look after him?"
"I've none," said Colonel Gould impatiently.
But Matthew had slipped the White Swan into his pocket, declaring that he would pay for the preacher, who was now groaning and stirring. As he was fumbling for the coins that Mr. Knibbs had given him, Colonel Gould's horse suddenly reared and knocked over the lantern.
There was a medley of noise and movement in the dark; Matthew was knocked off his balance and sprawled; he felt some one dragging at his belt; heard shouts, then a clatter of hoofs. And then felt a blow on the head that made him dizzy. When another light was brought, Colonel Gould had gone.
Matthew rubbed his head ruefully, wondering if he would be able to overtake his friend, who was splendidly mounted.
The trumpet was safe and he found the money to give the host. The preacher was still senseless and Matthew dare not wait to find out what he had been trying to tell him. No, he must be on his way to Oxford.
SO Matthew, rather shaken and dizzy, set out again; the moon was rising and after he had gone a few miles farther the silver light flooded the whole landscape.
Presently he came to a town—Beaconsfield, he thought—that he skirted, taking bye lanes and ways and coming back in the same manner to the high road. He was puzzling himself as to what the man with the White Swan had been trying to tell him and why Colonel Gould had not waited for him.
Soon after he was on the high road again, he passed into a grove of young trees that lined the road either side. The moonlight fell through the bare trunks and the scene reminded him of the night he had spent at Crawford Manor. Presently the moon would set and it would be almost completely dark; the boy had his lantern but he must use it sparingly so as not to attract attention.
The fancy took him to make sure yet once more that he had the jewels, for he remembered that when Mr. Knibbs had roused him he had put the trumpet on his shoulders without looking into the interior. Of course, this was a foolish anxiety, but he paused, dismounted, tied the horse's reins to an overhanging branch and took the cover off the trumpet.
With unutterable dismay he found the instrument a blank hollow.
With horror Matthew thrust his hand right down the mouth. Not a single stone remained, and he had added the emerald cross to the diamonds so that his loss was complete.
In a flash of bitter anger Matthew realized what had happened. Sybil, of course, had crept into his room while he slept, stolen the jewels, and taken them with her in her baggage to High-gate. By now they would be safely in the possession of her uncle, or whatever relative it was she had there; while Mrs. Jeffreys would have been the unwitting agent of robbing the King!
Matthew groaned aloud. His disappointment and rage were complete.
His first impulse was to turn his horse's head, ride back to Chelsea, and explain his terrible loss to Mr. Knibbs. Then he thought that he should do the harder thing and go on to His Majesty at Oxford and explain the disaster lest someone else got the blame of it or the King continued waiting for the help that would never now come.
So the boy rode on, exceedingly wroth and sorrowful. He wished that he had never been moved by compassion for the little Puritan maid.
His grief and misery were touched with anxiety, and suddenly he heard the sound of hoofs behind him. He put spurs to his horse but by the time he had cleared the long stretch of trees he was overtaken by a man with a child riding pillion behind him and heard a familiar voice calling his name; Matthew pulled up his animal in amazement. Yes, it was Sybil, and she was riding behind Simon Quare.
"Why," stammered Matthew, "what is this? What do you want with me?" Then he added bitterly: "Are you going to arrest me? Or perhaps kill me as well as rob me? Well, I'll make a fight for that," and he put his hand on his sword.
"Don't be so hasty, Mr. Jaye," said Simon Quare, with a crooked smile. "We've brought you your jewels!"
"Brought me my jewels?" exclaimed Matthew.
"Yes. You were robbed of them during that brawl in the yard of' 'The Wheatsheaf.'"
"Impossible!" exclaimed Matthew. "Why, the trumpet never left my back."
"This proves you wrong," said Simon Quare, and he tossed into the other's eagerly outstretched hand a bag of soft leather and some packages wrapped in strips of silk.
Matthew frantically dragged at the strings—there lay the diamonds and the emerald cross.
"You were too confident," said the Puritan drily. "You have been bold and clever. But you have made a good many mistakes."
Matthew was so joyful at having the jewels again that he scarcely heeded this rebuke; he gazed gratefully at Sybil, who sat, precise and demure, on the saddle of the stout grey horse. Nicko, the monkey, was asleep in her arms.
"I, too, make mistakes," added Simon Quare. "I should not allow those jewels to go to your King Charles. But I do not think that they will make much difference to a lost cause...."
"Who robbed me?" stammered Matthew. Then: "Fool that I am, it was Colonel Gould!" Simon Quare smiled. "You will not see him again, young sir, unless it is on the field of battle."
"A traitor!" cried Matthew hotly.
"Use what words you please," said Mr. Quare, "we each serve where we must. Colonel Gould, his lady, and the servant Jamieson are earnest Parliamentarians. They worked together."
"And bitterly deceived me!" cried Matthew.
"I did not know, either, about Colonel Gould," came Sybil's clear little voice. "My father does not tell me everything. But I should have tried to rescue you just the same even if I had known."
"In happier times," added the Puritan, "we should have liked one another well."
Matthew was glad of the night wind that blew on his hot face. What a simpleton he had been! While he had been trying to save Mr. Quare and Sybil from Colonel Gould, that traitor had known them for fellow rebels! "And how did you guess that I was carrying the jewels—and in the trumpet?"
"You took such good care of that great instrument," smiled Sybil, "and I slipped into your room at Chelsea and had a peep..."
"You were always cleverer than I was," smiled Matthew ruefully. "But how did Colonel Gould know what I carried and where I kept it?"
"He didn't know," said Sybil; "he thought you had papers. Of course he supposed they were in the trumpet by the care you took of..."
"And when he found they were jewels?" asked Matthew, clutching the precious packages.
"He said they were the Queen's and he didn't make war on ladies," said Sybil, yawning daintily.
"We were waiting for him just outside 'The Wheatsheaf.' He was sorry they weren't papers."
"That Royalist agent, disguised as a preacher, tried to warn me!" cried Matthew. "And I don't care to take the jewels like this."
"But I," said the little girl with great dignity, "like to give them to you. Colonel Gould said—'It is a lady's business, Mistress Sybil; do what you will with the gems. And as you saved my father's life, I thought I would send them to the King. With the greetings of the Queen and Mistress Sybil Quare," she added gravely, with a little bow.
"And now we must part," said the Puritan, turning his horse's head. "You your way and I mine."
Matthew felt sad as well as proud and relieved.
All he could say was: "I hope I may help you—Who knows, the day may come..."
The Puritan interrupted:
"The day may come when there is peace once more in England and no more talk of war. Then you and I, young sir, may be friends."
"I hope so," said Sybil. She held out her tiny hand, leaning from the pillion; Nicko woke up and blinked. The Cavalier youth and the Puritan maiden clasped hands and he said farewell again, not without a break in his voice; the moon was setting; the shadows were about them.
And then Simon Quare and his daughter rode away towards London, while Matthew Jaye rode forward towards Oxford.
And before the next day's sun was clear of the early mist he was in the pickets of His Majesty's lines, the towers of Oxford were before him and the Queen's jewels were safe next his heart, ready to be delivered to the King.
He still carried the trumpet and in his pocket was still the ivory Swan. And he hoped that he would never have to part with either, but always be able to keep them in memory of Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, and Sybil Quare, the little Puritan maid.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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