“Garlinge and Clupp, go scour the pikes. Tom Cropper, find something to keep you out of mischief. As for you, Gaffer Shard, you may rest awhile.”
The old man shook his frosty head vigorously. “Nay, nay,” he piped, “I need no rest. My old bones are loyal and cannot tire in a good cause. God save the King.”
He gave a shrill cheer which was echoed loudly by men and boy, and so cheering they tramped out of the hall in the trail of Mother Satchell, Garlinge staggering under the load of pikes which the lad had officiously foisted on to his shoulder, Clupp laughing vacantly after his manner, and steadfast old Shard waving his red cap and chirping his shrill huzzas.
VI
HOW WILL ALL END?
When they had all gone and the hall was quiet, Thoroughgood came slowly down with a puzzled frown on his honest, weather-beaten face to where Halfman humped over his map.
“Where’s the good of drilling clowns and cooks?” he asked, surlily. He talked like one thoroughly weary, but his mood of weariness seemed to melt before the sunshine of Halfman’s smile as he lifted his head from the map.
“Where’s the harm?” he countered. “’Twas my lady’s idea to keep their spirits up, and, by God! it was a good thought. She knows how it heartens folk to play a great part in a great business: keeps them from feeling the fingers of famine in their inwards, keeps them from whining, repining, declining, what you will. But I own I did not count on the presence of Gammer Cook in the by-play.”
“I could not see why she should be kept out of the mummery,” Thoroughgood responded, “if she had a mind for the masking.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Halfman answered, meditatively. “My lady’s example would make a Hippolyta of any housemaid of them all.”
“I do not know what it would make of them,” Thoroughgood answered; “but I know this, that it matters very little now.”
Halfman swung round on his seat and stared at him curiously.
“Why?” he asked.
“Now that this truce is called,” Thoroughgood answered, “that the Roundhead captain may have speech with my lady.”
“Why, what then?” questioned Halfman, with his eyes so fixed on Thoroughgood’s that Thoroughgood, dogged as he was, averted his gaze.
“Naught’s left but surrender,” he grunted, between his teeth. The words came thickly, but Halfman heard them clearly. He raised his right hand for a moment as if he had a thought to strike his companion, but then, changing his temper, he let it fall idly upon his knee as he surveyed Thoroughgood with a look that half disdained, half pitied.
“My lady will never surrender,” he said, quietly, with the quiet of a man who enunciates a mathematical axiom. “You know that well enough.”
Thoroughgood shrugged plaintive, protesting shoulders.
“We’ve stood this siege for many days,” he muttered. “Food is running out; powder is running out. Even the Lady Brilliana cannot work miracles.”
Halfman rose to his feet. His eyes were shining and he pressed his clinched hands to his breast like a man in adoration.
“The Lady Brilliana can work miracles, does work miracles daily. Is it no miracle that she has held this castle all these hours and days against this rebel leaguer? Is it no miracle that she has poured the spirit of chivalry into scullions and farm-hands and cook-wenches so that not a Jack or Jill of them but would lose bright life blithely for her and the King and God? Is it not a miracle that she has transmuted, by a change more amazing than anything Master Ovid hath recorded in his Metamorphoses, a villanous old land-devil and sea-devil like myself into a passionate partisan? But what of me? God bless her! She is my lady-angel, and her will is my will to the end of the chapter.”
He dropped in his chair again as if exhausted by the vehemence of his words and the emotion which prompted them. Thoroughgood contemplated him sourly.
“You prate like a play-actor,” he snarled. Halfman’s whole being flashed into activity again. He was no more a sentimentalist but now a roaring ranter.
“Because I was a play-actor once,” he shouted, “when I was a sweet-and-twenty youngling.”
Thoroughgood eyed Halfman with a sudden air of distrust.
“You never told me you were a play-actor,” he growled. “You spoke only of soldiering.”
Halfman laughed flagrantly in his face.
“Godamercy, man, there has been scant time to tell you my life’s story. We have had other cats to whip. Yes, I was a play-actor once, and played for great poets, for men whose names have never tickled your ears. But the owl-public would have none of me, and, owllike, hooted me off the boards. But I’ve had my revenge of them. I’ve played a devil’s part on the devil’s stage for thirty red years. Nune Plaudite.”
The Latin tag dropped dead at the porches of John Thoroughgood’s ears, but those ears pricked at part of Halfman’s declamation.
“What kind of parts?” he asked, drawing a little nearer to the soldier of fortune, whose experiences fascinated his inexperience.
Halfman shrugged his shoulders and favored honest Thoroughgood with a bantering, quizzical smile.
“All kinds of parts,” he answered. “How does the old puzzle run? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, ploughboy, gentleman, thief. I think I have played all those parts, and others, too. Fling beggar and pirate into the dish. But I tell you this, honest John, I have never played a part so dear to me as that of captain to this divine commander. I thank my extravagant stars that steered me home to serve her.”
“You cannot sing her praises too sweetly for my ears,” Thoroughgood answered. “But there is an end to all things, and it looks to me as if we were mighty near to an end of the siege of Harby. Why else should there be a truce called that the Roundhead captain may have speech with my lady.”
“Honest John Thoroughgood,” Halfman answered, with great composure, “you are not so wise as you think. This Roundhead captain has sent us hither the most passionate pleadings to be admitted to parley. Why deny him? It will advantage him no jot, but it is possible we may learn from the leakage of his lips something at least of what is going on in the world.”
“What is there to learn?” asked Thoroughgood. Halfman shook his head reprovingly.
“Why, for my part, I should like to learn why in all this great gap of time nothing has been done to help one side or the other. If the gentry of Harby have made no effort to relieve us, neither, on the other hand, has our leaguer been augmented by any reinforcements. If my lady has been surprised that Sir Blaise Mickleton has made no show of coming to her succor, I, for my part, am woundily surprised that the Cropheads of Cambridge have sent no further levies for our undoing.”
“Why, for that matter – ” Thoroughgood began, and then suddenly broke off. “Here comes my lady,” he said, turning and standing in an attitude of respectful attention.
Halfman had known of her coming before his companion spoke. The Lady Brilliana had come out on to the gallery from the door near the head of the stairway, and Halfman was conscious of her presence before he lifted his eyes and looked at her. She was not habited now, as on the day when he first beheld her, in her riding-robe of green, but in a simple house-gown chosen for the ease and freedom it allowed to a great lady who had suddenly found that she had much to do. The color of the stuff, a crimson, as being a royal, loyal color, well became her fine skin and her dark curls and her bright, imperious eyes. She was followed by her serving-woman, Tiffany, a merry girl that Thoroughgood adored, and one that would in days gone over have been likely to tickle the easy whimsies of Halfman. Now he had no eyes, no thoughts, save for her mistress, the lass unparalleled.
Brilliana was speaking to Tiffany even as she entered the gallery.
“Strip more lint, Tiffany,”