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The Tavern Knight

R >> Rafael Sabatini >> The Tavern Knight




"Your note of hand is of no value to me, sir. I look to leave
England to-morrow, and I know not when I may return."

Thus in the end it came about that the bargain was concluded.
Cynthia's maid was awakened and bidden to rise. The horses
were harnessed to Crispin's coach, and Crispin, leaning upon
Harry Foster's arm, descended and took his place within the
carriage.

Leaving the London blood at the door of the Suffolk Arms,
crushing, burning, damning and ratting himself at Crispin's
magnificence, they rolled away through the night in the
direction of Ipswich.

Ten o"clock in the morning beheld them at the door of the
Garter Inn at Harwich. But the jolting of the coach had so
hardly used Crispin that he had to be carried into the
hostelry. He was much exercised touching the Lady Jane and his
inability to go down to the quay in quest of her, when he was
accosted by a burly, red-faced individual who bluntly asked him
was he called Sir Crispin Galliard. Ere he could frame an
answer the man had added that he was Thomas Jackson, master of
the Lady Jane - at which piece of good news Crispin felt like
to shout for joy.

But his reflection upon his present position, when at last he
lay in the schooner's cabin, brought him the bitter reverse of
pleasure. He had set out to bring Cynthia to his son; he had
pledged his honour to accomplish it. How was he fulfilling his
trust? In his despondency, during a moment when alone, he
cursed the knave that had wounded him for his clumsiness in not
having taken a lower aim when he fired, and thus solved him
this ugly riddle of life for all time.

Vainly did he strive to console himself and endeavour to
palliate the wrong he had done with the consideration that he
was the man Cynthia loved, and not his son; that his son was
nothing to her, and that she would never have accompanied him
had she dreamt that he wooed her for another.

No. The deed was foul, and rendered fouler still by virtue of
those other wrongs in whose extenuation it had been undertaken.
For a moment he grew almost a coward. He was on the point of
bidding Master Jackson avoid Calais and make some other port
along the coast. But in a moment he had scorned the craven
argument of flight, and determined that come what might he
would face his son, and lay the truth before him, leaving him
to judge how strong fate had been. As he lay feverish and
fretful in the vessel's cabin, he came well-nigh to hating
Kenneth; he remembered him only as a poor, mean creature, now a
bigot, now a fop, now a psalm-monger, now a roysterer, but ever
a hypocrite, ever a coward, and never such a man as he could
have taken pride in presenting as his offspring.

They had a fair wind, and towards evening Cynthia, who had been
absent from his side a little while, came to tell him that the
coast of France grew nigh.

His answer was a sigh, and when she chid him for it, he essayed
a smile that was yet more melancholy. For a second he was
tempted to confide in her; to tell her of the position in which
he found himself and to lighten his load by sharing it with
her. But this he dared not do. Cynthia must never know.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE AUBERGE DU SOLEIL


In a room of the first floor of the Auberge du Soleil, at
Calais, the host inquired of Crispin if he were milord
Galliard. At that question Crispin caught his breath in
apprehension, and felt himself turn pale. What it portended,
he guessed; and it stifled the hope that had been rising in him
since his arrival, and because he had not found his son
awaiting him either on the jetty or at the inn. He dared ask
no questions, fearing that the reply would quench that hope,
which rose despite himself, and begotten of a desire of which
he was hardly conscious.

He sighed before replying, and passing his brown, nervous hand
across his brow, he found it moist.

"My name, M. l"hote, is Crispin Galliard. What news have you
for me?"

"A gentleman - a countryman of milord's - has been here these
three days awaiting him."

For a little while Crispin sat quite still, stripped of his
last rag of hope. Then suddenly bracing himself, he sprang up,
despite his weakness.

"Bring him to me. I will see him at once."

"Tout-a-l"heure, monsieur," replied the landlord. "At the
moment he is absent. He went out to take the air a couple of
hours ago, and is not yet returned."

"Heaven send he has walked into the sea!" Crispin broke out
passionately. Then as passionately he checked himself. "No,
no, my God - not that! I meant not that."

"Monsieur will sup?"

"At once, and let me have lights." The host withdrew, to
return a moment later with a couple of lighted tapers, which he
set upon the table.

As he was retiring, a heavy step sounded on the stair,
accompanied by the clank of a scabbard against the baluster.

"Here comes milord's countryman," the landlord announced.

And Crispin, looking up in apprehension, saw framed in the
doorway the burly form of Harry Hogan.

He sat bolt upright, staring as though he beheld an apparition.
With a sad smile, Hogan advanced, and set his hand
affectionately upon Galliard's shoulder.

"Welcome to France, Crispin," said he. "If not him whom you
looked to find, you have at least a loyal friend to greet you."

"Hogan!" gasped the knight. "What make you here? How came you
here? Where is Jocelyn?"

The Irishman looked at him gravely for a moment, then sighed
and sank down upon a chair. "You have brought the lady?" he
asked.

"She is here. She will be with us presently."

Hogan groaned and shook his grey head sorrowfully.

"But where is Jocelyn?" cried Galliard again, and his haggard
face looked very wan and white as he turned it inquiringly upon
his companion. "Why is he not here?"

"I have bad news."

"Bad news?" muttered Crispin, as though he understood not the
meaning of the words. "Bad news?" he repeated musingly. Then
bracing himself, "What is this news?"

"And you have brought the lady too!" Hogan complained. "Faith,
I had hoped that you had failed in that at least."

"Sdeath, Harry," Crispin exclaimed. "Will you tell me the
news?"

Hogan pondered a moment. Then:

"I will relate the story from the very beginning," said he.
"Some four hours after your departure from Waltham) my men
brought in the malignant we were hunting. I dispatched my
sergeant and the troop forthwith to London with the prisoner,
keeping just two troopers with me. An hour or so later a coach
clattered into the yard, and out of it stepped a short, lean
man in black, with a very evil face and a crooked eye, who
bawled out that he was Joseph Ashburn of Castle Marleigh, a
friend of the Lord General's, and that he must have horses on
the instant to proceed upon his journey to London. I was in
the yard at the time, and hearing the full announcement I
guessed what his business in London was. He entered the inn to
refresh himself and I followed him. In the common room the
first man his eyes lighted on was your son. He gasped at sight
of him, and when he had recovered his breath he let fly as
round a volley of blasphemy as ever I heard from the lips of a
Puritan. When that was over, "Fool," he yells, "what make you
here?" The lad stammered and grew confused. At last - "I was
detained here," says he. "Detained!" thunders the other, "and
by whom?" "By my father, you murdering villain!" was the hot
answer.

"At that Master Ashburn grows very white and very evil-looking.
"So," he says, in a playful voice, "you have learnt that, have
you? Well, by God! the lesson shall profit neither you nor
that rascal your father. But I'll begin with you, you cur."
And with that he seizes a jug of ale that stood on the table,
and empties it over the boy's face. Soul of my body! The lad
showed such spirit then as I had never looked to find in him.
"Outside," yells he, tugging at his sword with one hand, and
pointing to the door with the other. "Outside, you hound,
where I can kill you!" Ashburn laughed and cursed him, and
together they flung past me into the yard. The place was empty
at the moment, and there, before the clash of their blades had
drawn interference, the thing was over - and Ashburn had sent
his sword through Jocelyn's heart."

Hogan paused, and Crispin sat very still and white, his soul in
torment.

"And Ashburn?" he asked presently, in a voice that was
singularly hoarse and low. "What became of him? Was he not
arrested?"

"No," said Hogan grimly, "he was not arrested. He was buried.
Before he had wiped his blade I had stepped up to him and
accused him of murdering a beardless boy. I remembered the
reckoning he owed you, I remembered that he had sought to send
you to your death; I saw the boy's body still warm and bleeding
upon the ground, and I struck him with my knuckles on the
mouth. Like the cowardly ruffian he was, he made a pass at me
with his sword before I had got mine out. I avoided it
narrowly, and we set to work.

"People rushed in and would have stopped us, but I cursed them
so whilst I fenced, swearing to kill any man that came between
us, that they held off and waited. I didn't keep them
overlong. I was no raw youngster fresh from the hills of
Scotland. I put the point of my sword through Joseph Ashburn's
throat within a minute of our engaging.

"It was then as I stood in that shambles and looked down upon
my handiwork that I recalled in what favour Master Ashburn was
held by the Parliament, and I grew sick to think of what the
consequences might be. To avoid them I got me there and then
to horse, and rode in a straight line for Greenwich, hoping to
find the Lady Jane still there. But my messenger had already
sent her to Harwich for you. I was well ahead of possible
pursuit, and so I pushed on to Dover, and thence I crossed,
arriving here three days ago."

Crispin rose and stepped up to Hogan. "The last time you came
to me after killing a man, Harry, I was of some service to you.
You shall find me no less useful now. You will come to Paris
with me?"

"But the lady?" gasped Hogan, amazed at Crispin's lack of
thought for her.

"I hear her step upon the stairs. Leave me now, Harry, but as
you go, desire the landlord to send for a priest. The lady
remains."

One look of utter bewilderment did Hogan bestow upon Sir
Crispin, and for once his glib, Irish tongue could shape no
other words than:

"Soul of my body!"

He wrung Crispin's hand, and in a state of ineffable perplexity
he hurried from the room to do what was required of him.

For a moment Crispin stood by the window, and looking out into
the night he thanked God from his heart for his solution of the
monstrous riddle that had been set him.

Then the rustle of a gown drew his attention, and he swung
round to find Cynthia smiling upon him from the threshold.

He advanced to meet her, and setting his hands upon her
shoulders, he held her at arm's length, looking down into her
eyes.

"Cynthia, my Cynthia!" he cried. And she, breaking past the
barrier of his grasp, nestled up to him with a sigh of sweet
and unalloyed content.

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