XIX

SIR BLAISE PAYS HIS RESPECTS

Sir Blaise Mickleton was, in his own eyes and in the eyes of the village girls of Harby, a vastly fine gentleman. If they had ever heard of the sun-G.o.d, Phoebus Apollo would have presented himself to their rusticity in some such guise as the personality of the local knight. Sir Blaise had been to London--once--had kissed the King's hand at Whitehall, and had ever since striven vehemently to be more Londonish than the Londoner. He talked with what he thought to be the town's drawl; he walked, as he believed, with the town walk over the gra.s.ses of his grounds and on the Harby high-roads. He plagued the village tailor with strange devices for coats and cloaks; many-colored as a Joseph, he strutted through bucolic surroundings as if he carried the top-knot of the mode in the Mall; he glittered in ribbons and trinkets, floundered rather than swam in a sea of essences, yet scarcely succeeded in amending, with all this false foppishness, the something b.u.mpkin that was at the root of his nature. He was of a l.u.s.ty natural with the sanguine disposition, and held himself as much above the most of his neighbors as he knew himself to be below the house of Harby. He was no double-face, friendly with both sides; he was rather for peeping from behind the parted doors of the temple of peace upon a warring world without, and making fast friends with the victor. He had very little doubt that the victor would be the King, but just enough doubt to permit his surrender to a distemper that kept him to his bed till Edgehill proved the amazing remedy.

Sir Blaise peac.o.c.ked over the lawn, delicate as Agag. He murdered the morning air with odors, his raiment outglowed the rainbow; one hand dandled his staff, the other caressed his mustaches. He strove to smile adoration on Brilliana, but mistrust marred his ogle, and a shiver of fear betrayed his simper of confidence. Brilliana watched him gravely with never a word or a sign, and her silence intensified his discomfiture by the square of the distance he had yet to traverse.

"c.o.xcomb," she thought, and "coward," she thought, and "cur," she thought.

He could not read her thought, but he could read her tightened lips and her hostile eyes, and he wished himself again in bed at Mickleton. But it was too late to retreat, and he advanced in bad order under the silent fire of her disdain till he paused at what he deemed to be the proper place for ceremonious salutation. He uncovered, describing so magnificent a sweep of extended hat that its plumes brushed the gra.s.ses at her feet. He bowed so low that his pink face disappeared from view in the forward fall of his lovelocks. When the rising inflection shook these back and the pink face again confronted her, he seemed to have recovered some measure of a.s.sertion.

"Lady," he said, sighingly, "I kiss your mellifluous fingers and believe myself in Elysium."

The languishing glance that accompanied these languishing syllables had no immediate effect upon the lady to whom they were addressed.

Still Brilliana looked fixedly at her visitor, and still Sir Blaise found little ease under her steady gaze. He blinked uncomfortably; his fingers twitched; he tried to moisten his dry lips. At length, out of what seemed a wellnigh ageless silence, the lady spoke, and her words were an arraignment.

"Why did you not come to Harby when Harby needed help?"

Sir Blaise felt weak in the knees, weak in the back, weak in the wits; he would have given much for a seat, more for a sup of brandy.

But he had to speak, and did so after such gasping and stammering as spoiled his false bravado.

"I came to speak of that," he protested, forcing a jauntiness that he was far from feeling. "I feared you might misunderstand--"

"Indeed," interrupted Brilliana, "I think there is no misunderstanding."

Sir Blaise made an appealing gesture.

"Hear me out," he pleaded. "Hear me and pity me. The news of his Majesty's quarrel with his Parliament threw me into such a distemper as hath kept me to my bed these three weeks. My people held all news from me for my life's sake. It was but this morning I was judged sound enough to hear of all that has pa.s.sed. How otherwise should I not have flown to your succor? I could wish your siege had lasted a while longer to give me the glory of delivering you."

The sternness faded from Brilliana's gaze. She was not really angry with this overcareful gentleman; she would only have been grieved had he proved the man to serve her well. He was no more for such enterprises than your lap-dog for bull-baiting. Ridiculous in his finery, pitiful in his subterfuge, he was only a thing to smile at, to trifle with. So she smiled, and, rising, swept him a splendid reverence.

"I am your gallantry's very grateful servant," she whispered, having much ado to keep from laughing in his face. The fatuous are easily pacified.

"I hope you do not doubt my valor?" he asked, with some show of rea.s.surance.

"Indeed I have no doubt," Brilliana answered, with another courtesy.

The speech might have two meanings. Sir Blaise, unwilling to split hairs, took it as balsam, and hurriedly turned the conversation.

"Well! well!" he hummed. "You seem nothing the worse for your business."

"I am something the better," she said, softly. Perhaps Sir Blaise did not hear her.

"Is it true," he asked, "that you harbor a Crop-ear in this house?"

"Indeed," Brilliana confirmed, "I hold him as hostage for the life of Cousin Randolph. You know that he is a prisoner?"

"I heard that news with the rest of the budget," Sir Blaise answered.

"And what kind of a creature is your captive? Does he deafen you with psalms, does he plague you with exhortations?"

Brilliana laughed merrily.

"No, no; 'tis a most wonderful wild-fowl. My people swear he is mettled in all gentle arts, from the manage of horses to the casting of a falcon."

Sir Blaise shook his staff in protest of indignation.

"Is it possible that such a rascal usurps the privileges of gentlefolk?"

"He carries himself like a gentleman," Brilliana answered. "More's the pity that he should be false to his king and his kind."

Sir Blaise smiled condescendingly.

"Believe me, dear lady, you are misled. A woman may be deceived by an exterior. Doubtless he has picked up his gentility in the servants'

hall of some great house, and seeks to curry your favor by airing it."

"He has persuaded those that are shrewd judges of men to praise him."

Again Sir Blaise laughed his fat laugh.

"Ha, ha! Shrewd judges of men. I will take no man's judgment but my own of this rascal. Had I word with him you should soon see me set him down."

Brilliana's glance wandering from the pied pomposity who strutted before her, saw a sharp contrast through the yew-tree arch. A man in sober habit was moving slowly over the gra.s.s in the direction of the pleasaunce, moving slowly, for he was carrying an open book and his eyes were fixed upon its pages. Truly the sombre Puritan made a better figure than her swaggering neighbor. She looked up at Sir Blaise with a pretty maliciousness in her smile.

"You can have your will even now," she said, "for I spy my prisoner coming here--and reading, too."

Sir Blaise swung round upon his heels and stared in the direction indicated by Brilliana. He saw Evander, black against the sunlit trees, the sunlit gra.s.ses, and he smiled derisively. He was very confident that there was no courage as there could be no wit in any Puritan. These things were the privileges of Cavaliers.

"His brains are buried in his book," he sneered. "If a stone came in his way now he would stumble over it, he's so deep in his sour studies. 'Tis some ponderous piece of divinity, I'll wager, levelled against kings."

He thought he was speaking low to his companion, but his was not a voice of musical softness, and its tones jarred the quiet air.

Evander caught the sound of it, lifted his head, and, looking before him over his book, saw in the yew haven Brilliana seated and a gaudy-coated gentleman standing by her side. He was immediately for turning and hastening in another direction, but Brilliana, for all she hated him, would not now have it so. Perhaps she had been piqued by Sir Blaise's too confident a.s.sumption of superiority to the judgment of her people; perhaps she thought it might divert her to see Puritan and Cavalier face each other before her in the shadowed circle of yews. Whatever her reason, she raised her hand and raised her voice to stay Evander's purpose.

"Sir, sir!" she cried. "Mr. Cloud, by your leave, I would have you come hither. Do not turn aside."

Thus summoned, Evander walked with slightly quickened pace to the place where Brilliana sat and saluted her with formal courtesy.

"I cry your pardon," he declared. "I would not intrude on your quiet, but I read and walked unconscious that there was company among the yews."

Brilliana answered him with the dignity of a gracious and benevolent queen.

"Do not withdraw, sir; you have the liberty of Loyalty House, and I would not have you avoid any part of its gardens."

Evander bowed. Sir Blaise broke into a horse-laugh which grated more on Brilliana's ears than on Evander's. Brilliana was at heart rather angry that for once Puritan should show better than Cavalier.

"You are a vastly happy jack to be used so gently," he bellowed.