A brief pause and I gave the word to face about again. As I expected, the gang in the alley gave way before us, and the pursued became the pursuers. My men's blood was up now, their patience exhausted; and for a few moments pike and staff played a merry tune. But quickly the mob behind closed up on our heels. Stones began to be thrown, and presently one, dropped I think from a window, struck a man beside me and felled him to the ground.
That was our first loss. Drunken Steve, a great gross fellow, always in trouble, but a giant in strength, picked him up-we could not leave the man to be murdered-and plunged on with us bearing him under his arm.
'Good man!' I cried between my teeth. And I swore it should save the drunkard from many a scrape. But the next moment another was down, and him I had to pick up myself. Then I saw that we were as good as doomed. Against the stones we had no shield.
The men saw it too, and cried out, beside themselves with rage. We were as rats, set in a pit to be worried-in the dark with a hundred foes tearing at us. And the town seemed to have gone mad-mad! Above the screams and wicked laughter, and all the din about us, I heard the great church bell begin to ring, and hurling its notes, now sharp, now dull, down upon the seething streets, swell and swell the tumult until the very sky seemed one in the league against us!
Blind with fury-for what had we done? – we turned on the mob which followed us and hurled it back-back almost to the High Street. But that way was no exit for us; the crowd stood so close that they could not even fly. Round we whirled again, wild and desperate now, and charged down the alley towards the West Gate, thinking possibly to win through and out by that way. We had almost reached the locksmith's-then another man fell. He was of the Waldgrave's following, and his comrade stooped to raise him; but only to fall over him, wounded in his turn.
What happened after that I only knew in part, for from that moment all was a medley of random blows and stragglings in the dark. The crowd seeing half of us down, and the rest entangled, took heart of grace to finish us. I remember a man dashing a torch in my face, and the blow blinding me. Nevertheless I staggered forward to close with him. Then something tripped me up, something or some one struck me from behind as I fell. I went down like an ox, and for me the fight was over.
Drunken Steve and two of the Waldgrave's men fought across me, I am told, for a minute or more. Then Steve fell and an odd thing happened. The mob took fright at nothing-took fright at their own work, and coming suddenly to their senses, poured pell-mell out of the alley faster than they had come into it. The two strangers, knowing nothing of the way or the town, knocked at the nearest door and were taken in, and sheltered till morning.
CHAPTER V.
MARIE WORT
There never was one of my forefathers could read, or knew so much as a horn-book when he saw it; and therefore I, though a clerk, have a brain pan that will stand as much as any scholar's and more than many a simple man's. Otherwise the blow I got that night must have done me some great mischief, instead of merely throwing me into a swoon, in which I lay until the morning was well advanced.
When I came to myself with an aching head and a dry mouth, I was hard put to it for a time to think what had happened to me. The place in which I lay was dark, with spots of red lights like flaming eyes here and there. An odour of fire and leather and iron filled my nostrils. A hoarse soughing as of a winded horse came and went regularly, with a dull rumbling and creaking that seemed to shake the place. Dizzy as I was, I rose on my elbow with an effort, and looked round. But my eyes swam, I could see nothing which enlightened me, and with a groan I fell back. Then I found that I was lying on a straw-bed, with bandages round my head, and gradually the events of the night came back to me. My mind grew clearer. Yet it still failed to tell me where I was, or whence came the hoarse choking sound, like the sighing of some giant of the Harz, which I heard.
At last, while I lay wondering and fearing, a door opened and let into the dark place a flood of ruddy light. Framed in this light a young girl appeared, standing on the threshold. She held a tray in her hand, and paused to close the door behind her. The bright glow which shone round her, gave her a strange unearthly air, picking out gold in her black locks and warming her pale cheeks; but for all that I recognised her, and never was I more astonished. She was no other than the daughter of the Papist Wort-the girl to rescue whom we had gone down to the Red Hart.
I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise, and the girl started and stopped, peering into the corner in which I lay.
'Master Martin,' she said in a low tone, 'was that you?'
I had never heard her speak before, and I found, perhaps by reason of my low state, and a softness which pain induces in the roughest, a peculiar sweetness in her voice. I would not answer for a moment. I made her speak again.
'Master Martin,' she said, advancing timidly, 'are you yourself again?'
'I don't know,' I muttered. In very fact I was so much puzzled that this was nearly the truth. 'If you will tell me where I am, I may be able to say,' I added, turning my head with an effort.
'You are in the kitchen behind the locksmith's forge,' she answered plainly. 'He is a good man, and you are in no danger. The window is shuttered to keep the light from your eyes.'
'And the noise I hear is the bellows at work?'
'Yes,' she answered, coming near. 'It is almost noon. If you will drink this broth you will get your strength again.'
I seized the bowl and drank greedily. When I set it down, my eyes seemed clearer and my mind stronger.
'You escaped?' I said. The more I grew able to think, the more remarkable it seemed to me that the girl should be here-here in the same house in which I lay.
'Through the window,' she answered, in a faint voice.
As she spoke she turned from me, and I knew that she was thinking of her father and would fain hide her face.
'But the bars?' I said.
'I am very small,' she answered in the same low tone.
I do not know why, but perhaps because of the weakness and softness I have mentioned, I found something very pitiful in the answer. It stirred a sudden rush of anger in my heart. I pictured this, helpless girl chased through the streets by the howling pack of cravens we had encountered, and for a few seconds, bruised and battered as I was, I felt the fighting spirit again. I half rose, then turned giddy, and sank back again. It was a minute or more before I could ask another question. At last I murmured-
'You have not told me how you came here?'
'I was coming up the alley,' she answered, shuddering, 'when at the corner by this house I met men coming to meet me. I fled into the passage to escape them, and finding no outlet, and seeing a light here, I knocked. I thought that some woman might pity me and take me in.'
'And Peter did?'
'Yes,' she answered simply. 'May Our Lady reward him.'
'We were the men you met,' I said drowsily. 'I remember now. You were carrying your brother.'
'My brother?'
'Yes, the child.'
'Oh, yes,' she answered, in rather a strange fashion; but I was too dull to do more than notice it. 'The child of course.'
I could ask no more, for my head was already splitting with pain. I lay back, and I suppose went off into a swoon again, sleeping all that day and until the morning of the next was far advanced.
Then I awoke to find the place in which I lay changed from a cave of mystery to a low-roofed dingy room; the shutter of the window standing half-open, admitted a ray of sunshine and a breath of pure air. A small fire burned on the hearth, a black pot bubbled beside it. For the room itself, a litter of old iron stood in every corner; bunches of keys and rows of rusty locks-padlocks, fetter-locks, and door-locks-hung