The thin shining blade darted here and there like an adder’s tongue, and as painfully. Yelp after yelp showed its potency, and the dogs, quick to learn that they were overmatched, abated their fury and contented themselves with noisy outcry at a safe distance from the semicircle of danger, jumping sideways and backward, barking valorously, but keeping well clear of the rapier. At a glance from the Earl the huntsman whipped them back into their former places.
“Yes, lash them, you whelp, but it’s over your own shoulders the cord should go, had I the ordering, thou meanest of the pack.”
“Madam,” said the Earl of Strafford sternly, “I would have you know that none give orders here but me.”
“In that you are mistaken, my lord. You have just heard me give them, and furthermore have seen them obeyed. But aside from the ordering of either you or me, I understand this to be the King’s park.” Again De Courcy laughed.
“She hit you there, my lord,” he had the temerity to say.
Strafford paid no attention to his gibe, but gazed darkly at the fearless intruder.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I have told you, my lord. I wish a word in your private ear.”
“Speak out what you have to say.”
“ ’T is to be heard by none but the Earl of Strafford; no, not even by the King himself; for, you should know, were it other fashion, I would have spoken when last I encountered you.”
“I have no secrets from the King.”
“Nor need this be one. ’T is yours to proclaim to the world at your pleasure. But first it is for your ear alone. Send that painted popinjay to the rear with the dogs. The others are gentlemen and will retire of their own accord when they learn a lady wishes to speak privily with you.”
It was now the turn of the English nobles to laugh, which they did merrily enough, but De Courcy seemed less pleased with the rude suggestion. He fumbled at his sword-hilt, and muttered angrily that if any present wished to make the girl’s reference his own, a meeting could be speedily arranged to discuss the question. Strafford, however, had no mind for any by-play. His glance quelled the rising difference; then he said harshly to the young woman—“What do you here in the King’s park, lacking permission, as I suspect?”
“Indeed,” cried the girl with a toss of the head, “they say, where I come from, that everything seemingly possessed by the King belongs actually to the people, and being one of the people I come to my own domain asking permission of none.”
“You are young to speak treason.”
“ ’T is no treason of mine. I but repeat what others say.”
“Still, how came you here?”
“Easily. Over the wall. I was refused access to you by any other means, so I took the method that suggested itself.”
“You were feigning yesterday to be a gipsy. Who are you?”
“That is what I wish to tell your lordship when I get the opportunity. As for yesterday, I feigned nothing. I but retold what an old gipsy once said to me regarding the King and Lord Strafford. I wished to engage your attention, but, like the underlings of this palace, you turned me away.”
“Your persistence shall be rewarded, but with this proviso. If the news you make so much of is not worth the telling, then shall you expiate your impudence in prison. If you fear to accept the risk, you had better begone while there is yet time, and let us see no more of you.”
“I accept the hazard freely, my lord.”
The Earl of Strafford said no more, but turned to his followers, who at once withdrew to the background, except De Courcy, who, not having forgiven the insult placed upon him, and unconscious that his reluctance to quit the spot was giving point to the girl’s invective, cried angrily—“Beware, Lord Strafford. There may be more in this than appears on the surface. She has shown herself expert with a stolen blade. That blade is still in her hand.”
The Earl smiled coldly; he was unused to disobedience even where it concerned his own safety.
“ ’Tis but fair,” he said, “that I should take some risk to equal hers. I’ll chance the stroke. Your prayer was that I should meet this damsel alone in the forest. Do not, I beg of you, prevent fulfilment of your devout petition by further tarrying.”
But before this was spoken the girl had flung the borrowed rapier far into the forest glade, then waved her disencumbered hand to the departing Frenchman, saying mockingly—“Farewell, popinjay. The treacherous ever make suggestion of treachery.” To the Earl she added, “My lord, I am entirely unarmed.”
“What have you to say to me?” replied Strafford severely, bending his dark gaze upon her.
“Sir,”—her voice lowered so that none might by any chance overhear—“Sir, I am Frances Wentworth, your lordship’s eldest daughter.”
CHAPTER II.—RECOGNITION.
The Earl lowered upon the girl, and the black anger upon his brow might have warned a more intrepid person than even she appeared to be that there was peril in trifling. When at last he spoke, his voice was harsh and menacing.
“What do you expect to gain by a statement so preposterous?”
“I expect to gain a father.”
The girl’s answer trod quick upon the heels of the question, but her colour changed from red to pale, and from pale to red again, and her hurried breathing hinted of some knowledge of her hazard, which nevertheless she faced without flinching.
“My eldest daughter, say you? My eldest daughter is Ann, aged thirteen, a modest little maid. I take you to be older, and I should hesitate to apply to you the qualification I have just coupled with her name.”
“I am sixteen, therefore her senior. Thus one part of my contention is admitted. If she is modest, it doth become a maid, and is reasonably to be expected, for she hath a mother’s care. I have had none. If you detect a boldness in my manner, ’t is but another proof I am my father’s daughter.”
Something resembling a grimace rather than a smile disturbed the white lips of Strafford at this retort. He bent his eyes on the ground, and his mind seemed to wander through the past. They stood thus in silence opposite each other, the girl watching him intently, and when she saw his mouth twitch with a spasm of pain, a great wave of pity overspread her face and brought the moisture to her eyes; but she made no motion toward him, held in increasing awe of him.
“Boldness is not a virtue,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “There’s many a jade in England who can claim no relationship with me.”
This remark, calling for no response, received none.
“Sixteen years of age! Then that was in——”
The Earl paused in his ruminations as if the simple mathematical problem baffled him, the old look of weariness and pain clouding his downturned face.
“The year 1624,” said the girl promptly.
“Doubtless, doubtless. 1624. It is long since; longer than the days that have passed seem to indicate. I was a young man then, now——now——I am an aged wreck, and all in sixteen years. And so in you, the spirit of youth, the unknown past confronts me, demanding——demanding what?”
“Demanding nothing, my lord.”