“Oh, no, no!” cried Johan, the player’s boy. “You’ll but drive her on in any prank she’s bent on.”
“Then it’s Master Ogilvie I’ll see,” declared Lindley. “Where have all your eyes been that the girl could have met a lover; that she could have seen anyone with whom to fall in love? She must not fall in love with anyone save me. Do you hear, boy? I love her. I love her.”
“Ah, then it is your heart that’s engaged in this matter,” commented Johan. “I thought, perhaps – why, perhaps it was merely Mistress Judith’s defiance of her father’s wishes that led you on to wish to marry her. You – you really do love Mistress Judith, for herself? Really love her as a lover ought to love?”
“You’re over curious, my lad,” growled Lindley. “And yet ’tis my own fault, I suppose. I’ve given you my confidence.”
“But how know you that you love Mistress Judith?” persisted the boy.
“I love her – I love her because I’ve loved her always,” answered Lindley, passionately. “I loved her when I was ten, when she was six, when her golden head was no higher than my heart.”
“’Tis somewhat higher now, I think.” The boy’s words were very low. “More like her heart would match to yours. Her eyes are as high above the ground as your own. Her lips would not be raised to meet your lips.”
Lindley’s face had grown scarlet.
“Be silent, boy,” he cried. “You speak over freely of sacred things.”
The lad, backing away from under Lindley’s upraised arm, still murmured, echoing Lindley’s words: “Sacred things!” and added: “Mistress Judith’s heart! Her eyes! Her lips!”
What Lindley’s answer might have been from lips and hand the lad never knew. It was checked by a sudden onslaught from behind. Out from the low bushes that hedged the woods sprang two figures in hoods and cloaks. The foremost was tall and burly, though agile enough. The second seemed but a clumsy follower. In an instant Lindley’s sword was engaged with that of the leader. For only an instant Johan hesitated. Drawing a short sword from under his cloak, he sprang upon the second of the highwaymen. Their battle was short, for the fellow’s clumsiness made him an easy victim for the slender youth. Pinked but slightly in the arm, he gave vent to an unearthly howl and, turning away, he fled through the dark aisles of the woods, his diminishing shrieks denoting the speed and length of his flight.
But Johan’s victory came not a second too soon, for just at that moment Lindley’s sword dropped from his hand, the blood spurting from a deep wound in his shoulder. With a low snarl of victory, the highwayman drew back his arm to plunge his sword into his victim’s breast, but Johan, springing forward and picking Lindley’s weapon from the ground, hurled himself upon their assailant.
“Not so fast, my friend,” he cried, and in another second blades were again flashing. Lindley, who for a moment had been overwhelmed by the shock of his wound, raised a useless voice in protest. Johan’s own voice drowned every sound as he drove his antagonist now this way, now that, quite at his own will.
The moon, in its last quarter, was just rising above the trees, and the narrow glade was lighted with its weird, fantastic glow. From one side of the road to the other, the shadowy figures moved, the steel blades flashing in the glinting light, Johan’s short, sharp cries punctuating the song of the swords. Lindley could hear the ruffian’s heavy breathing as Johan forced him up the bank that edged the road. He heard his horse’s nervous whinny as the fight circled his flanks. But Lindley was so fascinated by the brilliancy of the lad’s fighting that he had no thought of the outcome of the fray until he heard a sudden sharp outcry. Then he saw Johan stagger back, but he saw at the same instant that the highwayman had fallen, doubled over in a heap, upon the ground. He saw, too, that Johan’s sword, trailing on the ground, was red with blood.
“You’re hurt, lad!” Lindley, faint from loss of blood, staggered toward the boy.
“Ay, ay, hurt desperately,” moaned Johan. His voice seemed weak and faltering.
“But how? But where? I did not see him touch you!” Lindley’s left arm encircled the lad, his right hung limp at his side.
Johan’s head sank for an instant onto Lindley’s shoulder.
“No, he did not touch me, ’tis no bodily hurt,” he moaned; “but I’ve – I’ve killed the man.”
Lindley’s support was withdrawn instantly and roughly.
“After such a fight, are you fool enough to bemoan a victory?” His words, too, were rough. “Why, man, it was a fight to the death! You’d have been killed if you had not killed. Did you think you were fighting for the fun of it? You’re squeamish as a woman.”
Johan tried to recover his voice. He tried to stand erect.
“I did it well, did I not?” An unsteady laugh rang out. “The play acting, I mean. You forget, Master Lindley, that I’m a player, that in my parts I’m more often a woman than a man. And we actors are apt to grow into the parts we oftenest counterfeit.” Suddenly he staggered and the sword clattered from his hand. But again he straightened himself. “Would I gain applause as a woman, think you?”
“If it’s play acting, have done with it,” growled Lindley, whose wound was hurting; who, in reality, was almost fainting from loss of blood. “You’ve saved my life as well as your own, Johan. But we’ll touch on that later. There’s no fear, is there, that your dead man will come to life?”
The boy for the first time raised his eyes to Lindley’s face. Even in the darkness he could see that it was ghastly white and drawn with pain. A nervous cry burst from his lips, and he stretched both arms toward Lindley.
“Da – damn your play acting, boy,” sputtered Lindley. “Nay, I mean not to be so harsh. I’ll – I’ll not forget the debt I owe you either. But you must help me to The Jolly Grig, where Marmaduke has skill enough to tend my wound until I can reach London.”
“But Master Ogilvie has skill in the care of wounds,” cried Johan. “Surely we are nearer Master Ogilvie’s than The Jolly Grig. And Mistress Judith will – ”
“Nay, I’ll not force myself on Mistress Judith in this way,” answered Lindley, petulantly.
“You are over considerate of Mistress Judith’s feelings, even for a lover,” returned the boy.
“Ah, it’s not Mistress Judith’s feelings I’m considerate of,” replied Lindley. “She’s capable of saying that I got the wound on purpose to lie in her house, on purpose to demand her care.”
Here Johan’s unsteady laugh rang out once more.
“Indeed she’s capable of that very thing, my master,” he said, and as he spoke he began to tear his long coat into strips.
“What are you doing that for?” demanded Lindley, leaning more and more heavily against his horse’s side.
“It’s a bandage and a sling for your arm,” answered the boy. “If you will persist in the ride to The Jolly Grig, your arm must be tied so that it will not bleed again.”
“’Twill be a wonder if you do not faint away like a woman when you touch the blood,” scoffed Lindley.
“’Twill be a wonder, I’m thinking myself,” answered the boy, unsteadily.
And then, the bandage made and adjusted, Johan offered his shoulder to assist the wounded man into the saddle. But Lindley, pressing heavily yet tenderly against the lad, said gently:
“I’ve been rough, Johan, but believe me, this night’s work will stand you in good stead. Hereafter your play acting may be a matter of choice, but never again of necessity.”
“Heaven grant that the necessity will never again be so great!” murmured