My Lady Rotha: A Romance

'There is enough left for a horse to cross.'

'Yes,' I answered, 'to-day.'

'Why to-day?' he asked, still looking at me. I think he was surprised to see me so much moved.

'Because the rest will be blown up to-night,' I answered bluntly. 'Or may be. How can we guard it in the dark? It is fifty paces from the gate. We cannot risk men there-with our numbers.'

'Still it may not be,' he said. 'We must keep a sharp look-out.'

'But if it is?' I answered, halting suddenly, and looking him full in the face. 'If it is, my lord?' I continued. 'We are provisioned for a week only. It is not autumn, you see. Then the pickle tubs would be full, the larder stocked, the rafters groaning, the still-room supplied. But it is May, and there is little left. The last three days we have been thinking of other things than provisions; and we have thirty mouths to feed.'

The Waldgrave's face fell. 'I had not thought of that,' he said. 'The bridge gone, they may starve us, you mean?'

'Into submission to whatever terms they please,' I answered. 'We are too few to cut our way through the town, and there would be no other way of escape.'

'What do you advise, then?' he asked, drawing me aside with a flustered air. 'Flight?'

'A horse might cross the bridge to-day,' I said.

'But any terms would be better than that!' he replied with vehemence.

'What if they demand the expulsion of the Catholic girl, my lord, whom the Countess has taken under her protection?'

'They will not!' he said.

'They may,' I persisted.

'Then we will not give her up.'

'But the alternative-starvation?'

'Pooh! It will not come to that!' he answered lightly. 'You leap before you reach the stile.'

'Because, my lord, there will be no leaping if we do reach it.'

'Nonsense!' he cried masterfully. 'Something must be risked. To give up a strong place like this to a parcel of clodhoppers-it is absurd! At the worst we could parley.'

'I do not think my lady would consent to parley.'

'I shall say nothing to her about it,' he answered. 'She is no judge of such things.'

I had been thinking all the while that he had that in his mind, and on the spot I answered him squarely that I would not consent. 'My lady must know all,' I said, 'and decide for herself.'

He started, looking at me with his face very red. 'Why, man,' he said, 'would you browbeat me?'

'No, my lord,' I said firmly, 'but my lady must know.'

'You are insolent!' he cried, in a passion. 'You forget yourself, man, and that your mistress has placed me in command here!'

'I forget nothing, my lord,' I answered, waxing firmer. 'What I remember is that she is my mistress.'

He glared at me a moment, his face dark with anger, and then with a contemptuous gesture he left me and walked twice or thrice across the court. Doubtless the air did him good, for presently he came back to me. 'You are an ill-bred meddler!' he said with his head high, 'and I shall remember it. But for the present have your way. I will tell the Countess and take her opinion.'

He went into the house to do it, and I waited patiently in the courtyard, watching the sun rise and all the roofs grow red; listening to the twittering of the birds, and wondering what the answer would be. I had not set myself against him without misgiving, for in a little while all might be in his hands. But fear for my mistress outweighed fears on my own account; and in the thought of her shame, should she awake some morning and find herself trapped, I lost thought of my own interest and advancement. I have heard it said that he builds best for himself who builds for another. It was so on this occasion.

He came back presently, looking thoughtful, as if my lady had talked to him very freely, and shown him a side of her character that had escaped him. The anger was clean gone from his face, and he spoke to me without embarrassment; in apparent forgetfulness that there had been any difference between us. Nor did I ever find him bear malice long.

'The Countess decides to go,' he said, 'either to Cassel or Frankfort, according to the state of the roads. She will take with her Fraulein Max, her two women, and the Catholic girl, and as many men as you can horse. She thinks she may safely leave the castle in charge of old Jacob and Franz, with a letter directed to the Burgomaster and council, throwing the responsibility for its custody on them. When do you think we should start?'

'Soon after dark this evening,' I answered, 'if my lady pleases.'

'Then that decides it,' he replied carelessly, the dawn of a new plan and new prospects lighting up his handsome face. 'See to it, will you?'

CHAPTER IX.

WALNUTS OF GOLD

Night is like a lady's riding-mask, which gives to the most familiar features a strange and uncanny aspect. When to night are added silence and alarm, and that worst burden of all, responsibility-responsibility where a broken twig may mean a shot, and a rolling stone capture, where in a moment the evil is done-then you have a scene and a time to try the stoutest.

To walk boldly into a wall of darkness, relying on daylight knowledge, which says there is no wall; to step over the precipice on the faith of its depth being shadow-this demands nerve in those who are not used to the vagaries of night. But when the darkness may at any instant belch forth a sheet of flame; when every bush may hide a cowardly foe and every turn a pitfall, and there are women in company and helpless children, then a man had need to be an old soldier or forest-born, if he would keep his head cool, and tell one horse from another by the sound of its hoofs.

We started about eight, and started well. The Waldgrave and half a dozen men crossed first on foot, and took post to protect the farther end of the bridge. Then I led over the horses, beginning with the four sumpter beasts. Satisfied after this that the arch remained uninjured, and that there was room and to spare, I told my lady, and she rode over by herself on Pushka. Marie Wort tripped after her with the child in her arms. Fraulein Max I carried. My lady's women crossed hand in hand. Then the rest. So like a troop of ghosts or shadows, with hardly a word spoken or an order given, we flitted into the darkness, and met under the trees, where those who had not yet mounted got to horse. Led by young Jacob, who knew every path in the valley and could find his way blindfold, we struck away from the road without delay, and taking lanes and tracks which ran beside it, presently hit it again a league or more beyond the town and far on the way.

That was a ride not to be forgotten. The night was dark. At a distance the dim lights of the town did not show. The valley in which we rode, and which grows straighter as it approaches the mouth and the river, seemed like a black box without a lid. The wind, laden with mysterious rustlings and the thousand sad noises of the night, blew in our faces. Now and then an owl hooted, or a branch creaked, or a horse stumbled and its rider railed at it. But for the most part we rode in silence, the women trembling and crossing themselves-as most of our people do to this day, when they are frightened-and the men riding warily, with straining eyes and ears on the stretch.

Before we reached the ford, which lies nearly eight miles from the castle, the Waldgrave, who had his place beside my lady, began to talk; and then, if not before, I knew that his love for her was a poor thing. For, being in high spirits at the success of our plan-which he had come to consider his plan-and delighted to find himself again in the saddle with an adventure before him, he forgot that the matter must wear a different aspect in her eyes. She was leaving her home-the old rooms, the old books, and presses and stores, the duties, stately or simple, in which her life had been passed. And leaving them, not in the daylight, and with a safe and assured future before her, but by stealth and under cover of night, with a mind full of anxious questionings!

To my lord it seemed a fine thing to have the world before him; to know that all Germany beyond the Werra was convulsed by war, and a theatre wherein a bold man might look to play his part. But to a woman, however high-spirited, the knowledge was not reassuring. To one who was exchanging her own demesne and peace and plenty for a wandering life and dependence on the protection of men, it was the reverse.

So, while my lord talked gaily, my lady, I think, wept; doing that under cover of darkness and her mask, which she would never have done in the light. He talked on, planning and proposing; and where a true lover would have been quick to divine the woman's weakness, he felt no misgiving, thrilled with no sympathy. Then I knew that he lacked the subtle instinct which real love creates; which teaches the strong what it is the feeble dread, and gives a woman the daring of a man.

As we drew near the ford, I dropped back to see that all crossed safely. Pushka, I knew, would carry my lady over, but some of the others were worse mounted. This brought me abreast of the Catholic girl, though the darkness was such that I recognized her only by the dark mass before her, which I knew to be the child. We had had some difficulty in separating her from Steve, and persuading her that the man ran no risk where he lay; otherwise she had behaved admirably. I did not speak to her, but when I saw the gleam of water before us, and heard the horses of the leaders begin to splash through the shallows, I leant over and took hold of the boy.

'You had better give him to me,' I said gruffly. 'You will have both hands free then. Keep your feet high, and hold by the pommel. If your horse begins to swim leave its head loose.'

I expected her to make a to-do about giving up the child; but she did not, and I lifted it to the withers of my horse. She muttered something in a tone which sounded grateful, and then we splashed on in silence, the horses putting one foot gingerly before the other; some sniffing the air with loud snorts and outstretched necks, and some stopping outright.

I rode on the upstream side of the girl, to break the force of the water. Not that the ford is dangerous in the daytime (it has been bridged these five years), but at night, and with so many horses, it was possible one or another might stray from the track; for the ford is not straight, but slants across the stream. However, we all passed safely; and yet the crossing remains in my memory.

As I held the child before me-it was a gallant little thing, and clung to me without cry or word-I felt something rough round its neck. At the moment I was deep in the water, and I had no hand to spare. But by-and-by, as we rode out and began to clamber up the farther bank, I laid my hand on its neck, suspecting already what I should find.

I was not mistaken. Under my fingers lay the very necklace which Peter had described to me with so much care! I could trace the shape and roughness of the walnuts. I could almost count them. Even of the length of the chain I could fairly judge. It was long enough to go twice round the child's neck.

As soon as I had made certain, I let it be, lest the child should cry out; and I rode on, thinking hard. What, I wondered, had induced the girl to put the chain round its neck at that juncture? She had hidden it so carefully hitherto, that no eye but Peter's, so far as I could judge, had seen it. Why this carelessness now, then? Certainly it was dark, and, as far as eyes went, the chain was safe. But round her own neck, under her kerchief, where it had lain before, it was still safer. Why had she removed it?

We had topped the farther bank by this time, and were riding slowly along the right-hand side of the river; but I was still turning this over in my mind, when I heard her on a sudden give a little gasp. I knew in a moment what it was. She had bethought her where the necklace was. I was not a whit surprised when she asked me in a tremulous tone to give her back the child.

'It is very well here,' I said, to try her.