Robert Louis Stevenson 9 страница
| The day was beginning to break, cold and blue, with flying squalls of snow. Close under the lee of the Good Hope, the coast lay in alternate rocky headlands and sandy bays; and further inland the wooded hill-tops of Tunstall showed along the sky. Both the wind and the sea had gone down; but the vessel wallowed deep, and scarce rose upon the waves.
Lawless was still fixed at the rudder; and by this time nearly all the men had crawled on deck, and were now gazing, with blank faces, upon the inhospitable coast.
“Are we going ashore?” asked Dick.
“Ay,” said Lawless, “unless we get first to the bottom.”
And just then the ship rose so languidly to meet a sea, and the water weltered so loudly in her hold, that Dick involuntarily seized the steersman by the arm.
“By the mass!” cried Dick, as the bows of the Good Hope reappeared above the foam, “I thought we had foundered, indeed; my heart was at my throat.”
In the waist, Greensheve, Hawksley, and the better men of both companies were busy breaking up the deck to build a raft; and to these Dick joined himself, working the harder to drown the memory of his predicament. But, even as he worked, every sea that struck the poor ship, and every one of her dull lurches, as she tumbled wallowing among the waves, recalled him with a horrid pang to the immediate proximity of death.
Presently, looking up from his work, he saw that they were close in below a promontory; a piece of ruinous cliff, against the base of which the sea broke white and heavy, almost overplumbed the deck; and, above that, again, a house appeared, crowning a down.
Inside the bay the seas ran gayly, raised the Good Hope upon their foam-flecked shoulders, carried her beyond the control of the steersman, and in a moment dropped her, with a great concussion, on the sand, and began to break over her half-mast high, and roll her to and fro. Another great wave followed, raised her again, and carried her yet farther in; and then a third succeeded, and left her far inshore of the more dangerous breakers, wedged upon a bank.
“Now, boys,” cried Lawless, “the saints have had a care of us, indeed. The tide ebbs; let us but sit down and drink a cup of wine, and before half an hour ye may all march me ashore as safe as on a bridge.”
A barrel was broached, and, sitting in what shelter they could find from the flying snow and spray, the shipwrecked company handed the cup around, and sought to warm their bodies and restore their spirits.
Dick, meanwhile, returned to Lord Foxham, who lay in great perplexity and fear, the floor of his cabin washing knee-deep in water, and the lamp, which had been his only light, broken and extinguished by the violence of the blow.
“My lord,” said young Shelton, “fear not at all; the saints are plainly for us; the seas have cast us high upon a shoal, and as soon as the tide hath somewhat ebbed, we may walk ashore upon our feet.”
It was nearly an hour before the vessel was sufficiently deserted by the ebbing sea; and they could set forth for the land, which appeared dimly before them through a veil of driving snow.
Upon a hillock on one side of their way a party of men lay huddled together, suspiciously observing the movements of the new arrivals.
“They might draw near and offer us some comfort,” Dick remarked.
“Well, an’ they come not to us, let us even turn aside to them,” said Hawksley. “The sooner we come to a good fire and a dry bed the better for my poor lord.”
But they had not moved far in the direction of the hillock, before the men, with one consent, rose suddenly to their feet, and poured a flight of well-directed arrows on the shipwrecked company.
“Back! back!” cried his lordship. “Beware, in Heaven’s name, that ye reply not.”
“Nay,” cried Greensheve, pulling an arrow from his leather jack. “We are in no posture to fight, it is certain, being drenching wet, dog-weary, and three-parts frozen; but, for the love of old England, what aileth them to shoot thus cruelly on their poor country people in distress?”
“They take us to be French pirates,” answered Lord Foxham. “In these most troublesome and degenerate days we cannot keep our own shores of England; but our old enemies, whom we once chased on sea and land, do now range at pleasure, robbing and slaughtering and burning. It is the pity and reproach of this poor land.”
The men upon the hillock lay, closely observing them, while they trailed upward from the beach and wound inland among desolate sand-hills; for a mile or so they even hung upon the rear of the march, ready, at a sign, to pour another volley on the weary and dispirited fugitives; and it was only when, striking at length upon a firm high-road, Dick began to call his men to some more martial order, that these jealous guardians of the coast of England silently disappeared among the snow. They had done what they desired; they had protected their own homes and farms, their own families and cattle; and their private interest being thus secured, it mattered not the weight of a straw to any one of them, although the Frenchmen should carry blood and fire to every other parish in the realm of England.
BOOK IV — THE DISGUISE
CHAPTER I — THE DEN
The place where Dick had struck the line of a high-road was not far from Holywood, and within nine or ten miles of Shoreby-on-the-Till; and here, after making sure that they were pursued no longer, the two bodies separated. Lord Foxham’s followers departed, carrying their wounded master towards the comfort and security of the great abbey; and Dick, as he saw them wind away and disappear in the thick curtain of the falling snow, was left alone with near upon a dozen outlaws, the last remainder of his troop of volunteers.
Some were wounded; one and all were furious at their ill-success and long exposure; and though they were now too cold and hungry to do more, they grumbled and cast sullen looks upon their leaders. Dick emptied his purse among them, leaving himself nothing; thanked them for the courage they had displayed, though he could have found it more readily in his heart to rate them for poltroonery; and having thus somewhat softened the effect of his prolonged misfortune, despatched them to find their way, either severally or in pairs, to Shoreby and the Goat and Bagpipes.
For his own part, influenced by what he had seen on board of the Good Hope, he chose Lawless to be his companion on the walk. The snow was falling, without pause or variation, in one even, blinding cloud; the wind had been strangled, and now blew no longer; and the whole world was blotted out and sheeted down below that silent inundation. There was great danger of wandering by the way and perishing in drifts; and Lawless, keeping half a step in front of his companion, and holding his head forward like a hunting dog upon the scent, inquired his way of every tree, and studied out their path as though he were conning a ship among dangers.
About a mile into the forest they came to a place where several ways met, under a grove of lofty and contorted oaks. Even in the narrow horizon of the falling snow, it was a spot that could not fail to be recognised; and Lawless evidently recognised it with particular delight.
“Now, Master Richard,” said he, “an y’ are not too proud to be the guest of a man who is neither a gentleman by birth nor so much as a good Christian, I can offer you a cup of wine and a good fire to melt the marrow in your frozen bones.”
“Lead on, Will,” answered Dick. “A cup of wine and a good fire! Nay, I would go a far way round to see them.”
Lawless turned aside under the bare branches of the grove, and, walking resolutely forward for some time, came to a steepish hollow or den, that had now drifted a quarter full of snow. On the verge, a great beech-tree hung, precariously rooted; and here the old outlaw, pulling aside some bushy underwood, bodily disappeared into the earth.
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| The beech had, in some violent gale, been half-uprooted, and had torn up a considerable stretch of turf and it was under this that old Lawless had dug out his forest hiding-place. The roots served him for rafters, the turf was his thatch; for walls and floor he had his mother the earth. Rude as it was, the hearth in one corner, blackened by fire, and the presence in another of a large oaken chest well fortified with iron, showed it at one glance to be the den of a man, and not the burrow of a digging beast.
Though the snow had drifted at the mouth and sifted in upon the floor of this earth cavern, yet was the air much warmer than without; and when Lawless had struck a spark, and the dry furze bushes had begun to blaze and crackle on the hearth, the place assumed, even to the eye, an air of comfort and of home.
With a sigh of great contentment, Lawless spread his broad hands before the fire, and seemed to breathe the smoke.
“Here, then,” he said, “is this old Lawless’s rabbit-hole; pray Heaven there come no terrier! Far I have rolled hither and thither, and here and about, since that I was fourteen years of mine age and first ran away from mine abbey, with the sacrist’s gold chain and a mass-book that I sold for four marks. I have been in England and France and Burgundy, and in Spain, too, on a pilgrimage for my poor soul; and upon the sea, which is no man’s country. But here is my place, Master Shelton. This is my native land, this burrow in the earth! Come rain or wind — and whether it’s April, and the birds all sing, and the blossoms fall about my bed — or whether it’s winter, and I sit alone with my good gossip the fire, and robin red breast twitters in the woods — here, is my church and market, and my wife and child. It’s here I come back to, and it’s here, so please the saints, that I would like to die.”
“’Tis a warm corner, to be sure,” replied Dick, “and a pleasant, and a well hid.”
“It had need to be,” returned Lawless, “for an they found it, Master Shelton, it would break my heart. But here,” he added, burrowing with his stout fingers in the sandy floor, “here is my wine cellar; and ye shall have a flask of excellent strong stingo.”
Sure enough, after but a little digging, he produced a big leathern bottle of about a gallon, nearly three-parts full of a very heady and sweet wine; and when they had drunk to each other comradely, and the fire had been replenished and blazed up again, the pair lay at full length, thawing and steaming, and divinely warm.
“Master Shelton,” observed the outlaw, “y’ ’ave had two mischances this last while, and y’ are like to lose the maid — do I take it aright?”
“Aright!” returned Dick, nodding his head.
“Well, now,” continued Lawless, “hear an old fool that hath been nigh-hand everything, and seen nigh-hand all! Ye go too much on other people’s errands, Master Dick. Ye go on Ellis’s; but he desireth rather the death of Sir Daniel. Ye go on Lord Foxham’s; well — the saints preserve him! — doubtless he meaneth well. But go ye upon your own, good Dick. Come right to the maid’s side. Court her, lest that she forget you. Be ready; and when the chance shall come, off with her at the saddle-bow.”
“Ay, but, Lawless, beyond doubt she is now in Sir Daniel’s own mansion.” answered Dick.
“Thither, then, go we,” replied the outlaw.
Dick stared at him.
“Nay, I mean it,” nodded Lawless. “And if y’ are of so little faith, and stumble at a word, see here!”
And the outlaw, taking a key from about his neck, opened the oak chest, and dipping and groping deep among its contents, produced first a friar’s robe, and next a girdle of rope; and then a huge rosary of wood, heavy enough to be counted as a weapon.
“Here,” he said, “is for you. On with them!”
And then, when Dick had clothed himself in this clerical disguise, Lawless produced some colours and a pencil, and proceeded, with the greatest cunning, to disguise his face. The eyebrows he thickened and produced; to the moustache, which was yet hardly visible, he rendered a like service; while, by a few lines around the eye, he changed the expression and increased the apparent age of this young monk.
“Now,” he resumed, “when I have done the like, we shall make as bonny a pair of friars as the eye could wish. Boldly to Sir Daniel’s we shall go, and there be hospitably welcome for the love of Mother Church.”
“And how, dear Lawless,” cried the lad, “shall I repay you?”
“Tut, brother,” replied the outlaw, “I do naught but for my pleasure. Mind not for me. I am one, by the mass, that mindeth for himself. When that I lack, I have a long tongue and a voice like the monastery bell — I do ask, my son; and where asking faileth, I do most usually take.”
The old rogue made a humorous grimace; and although Dick was displeased to lie under so great favours to so equivocal a personage, he was yet unable to restrain his mirth.
With that, Lawless returned to the big chest, and was soon similarly disguised; but, below his gown, Dick wondered to observe him conceal a sheaf of black arrows.
“Wherefore do ye that?” asked the lad. “Wherefore arrows, when ye take no bow?”
“Nay,” replied Lawless, lightly, “’tis like there will be heads broke — not to say backs — ere you and I win sound from where we’re going to; and if any fall, I would our fellowship should come by the credit on’t. A black arrow, Master Dick, is the seal of our abbey; it showeth you who writ the bill.”
“An ye prepare so carefully,” said Dick, “I have here some papers that, for mine own sake, and the interest of those that trusted me, were better left behind than found upon my body. Where shall I conceal them, Will?”
“Nay,” replied Lawless, “I will go forth into the wood and whistle me three verses of a song; meanwhile, do you bury them where ye please, and smooth the sand upon the place.”
“Never!” cried Richard. “I trust you, man. I were base indeed if I not trusted you.”
“Brother, y’ are but a child,” replied the old outlaw, pausing and turning his face upon Dick from the threshold of the den. “I am a kind old Christian, and no traitor to men’s blood, and no sparer of mine own in a friend’s jeopardy. But, fool, child, I am a thief by trade and birth and habit. If my bottle were empty and my mouth dry, I would rob you, dear child, as sure as I love, honour, and admire your parts and person! Can it be clearer spoken? No.”
And he stumped forth through the bushes with a snap of his big fingers.
Dick, thus left alone, after a wondering thought upon the inconsistencies of his companion’s character, hastily produced, reviewed, and buried his papers. One only he reserved to carry along with him, since it in nowise compromised his friends, and yet might serve him, in a pinch, against Sir Daniel. That was the knight’s own letter to Lord Wensleydale, sent by Throgmorton, on the morrow of the defeat at Risingham, and found next day by Dick upon the body of the messenger.
Then, treading down the embers of the fire, Dick left the den, and rejoined the old outlaw, who stood awaiting him under the leafless oaks, and was already beginning to be powdered by the falling snow. Each looked upon the other, and each laughed, so thorough and so droll was the disguise.
“Yet I would it were but summer and a clear day,” grumbled the outlaw, “that I might see myself in the mirror of a pool. There be many of Sir Daniel’s men that know me; and if we fell to be recognised, there might be two words for you, brother, but as for me, in a paternoster while, I should be kicking in a rope’s-end.”
Thus they set forth together along the road to Shoreby, which, in this part of its course, kept near along the margin or the forest, coming forth, from time to time, in the open country, and passing beside poor folks’ houses and small farms.
Presently at sight of one of these, Lawless pulled up.
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| “Brother Martin,” he said, in a voice capitally disguised, and suited to his monkish robe, “let us enter and seek alms from these poor sinners. Pax vobiscum! Ay,” he added, in his own voice, “’tis as I feared; I have somewhat lost the whine of it; and by your leave, good Master Shelton, ye must suffer me to practise in these country places, before that I risk my fat neck by entering Sir Daniel’s. But look ye a little, what an excellent thing it is to be a Jack-of-all-trades! An I had not been a shipman, ye had infallibly gone down in the Good Hope; an I had not been a thief, I could not have painted me your face; and but that I had been a Grey Friar, and sung loud in the choir, and ate hearty at the board, I could not have carried this disguise, but the very dogs would have spied us out and barked at us for shams.”
He was by this time close to the window of the farm, and he rose on his tip-toes and peeped in.
“Nay,” he cried, “better and better. We shall here try our false faces with a vengeance, and have a merry jest on Brother Capper to boot.”
And so saying, he opened the door and led the way into the house.
Three of their own company sat at the table, greedily eating. Their daggers, stuck beside them in the board, and the black and menacing looks which they continued to shower upon the people of the house, proved that they owed their entertainment rather to force than favour. On the two monks, who now, with a sort of humble dignity, entered the kitchen of the farm, they seemed to turn with a particular resentment; and one — it was John Capper in person — who seemed to play the leading part, instantly and rudely ordered them away.
“We want no beggars here!” he cried.
But another — although he was as far from recognising Dick and Lawless — inclined to more moderate counsels.
“Not so,” he cried. “We be strong men, and take; these be weak, and crave; but in the latter end these shall be uppermost and we below. Mind him not, my father; but come, drink of my cup, and give me a benediction.”
“Y’ are men of a light mind, carnal, and accursed,” said the monk. “Now, may the saints forbid that ever I should drink with such companions! But here, for the pity I bear to sinners, here I do leave you a blessed relic, the which, for your soul’s interest, I bid you kiss and cherish.”
So far Lawless thundered upon them like a preaching friar; but with these words he drew from under his robe a black arrow, tossed it on the board in front of the three startled outlaws, turned in the same instant, and, taking Dick along with him, was out of the room and out of sight among the falling snow before they had time to utter a word or move a finger.
“So,” he said, “we have proved our false faces, Master Shelton. I will now adventure my poor carcase where ye please.”
“Good!” returned Richard. “It irks me to be doing. Set we on for Shoreby!
CHAPTER II — “IN MINE ENEMIES’ HOUSE”
Sir Daniel’s residence in Shoreby was a tall, commodious, plastered mansion, framed in carven oak, and covered by a low-pitched roof of thatch. To the back there stretched a garden, full of fruit-trees, alleys, and thick arbours, and overlooked from the far end by the tower of the abbey church.
The house might contain, upon a pinch, the retinue of a greater person than Sir Daniel; but even now it was filled with hubbub. The court rang with arms and horseshoe-iron; the kitchens roared with cookery like a bees’-hive; minstrels, and the players of instruments, and the cries of tumblers, sounded from the hall. Sir Daniel, in his profusion, in the gaiety and gallantry of his establishment, rivalled with Lord Shoreby, and eclipsed Lord Risingham.
All guests were made welcome. Minstrels, tumblers, players of chess, the sellers of relics, medicines, perfumes, and enchantments, and along with these every sort of priest, friar, or pilgrim, were made welcome to the lower table, and slept together in the ample lofts, or on the bare boards of the long dining-hall.
On the afternoon following the wreck of the Good Hope, the buttery, the kitchens, the stables, the covered cartshed that surrounded two sides of the court, were all crowded by idle people, partly belonging to Sir Daniel’s establishment, and attired in his livery of murrey and blue, partly nondescript strangers attracted to the town by greed, and received by the knight through policy, and because it was the fashion of the time.
The snow, which still fell without interruption, the extreme chill of the air, and the approach of night, combined to keep them under shelter. Wine, ale, and money were all plentiful; many sprawled gambling in the straw of the barn, many were still drunken from the noontide meal. To the eye of a modern it would have looked like the sack of a city; to the eye of a contemporary it was like any other rich and noble household at a festive season.
Two monks — a young and an old — had arrived late, and were now warming themselves at a bonfire in a corner of the shed. A mixed crowd surrounded them — jugglers, mountebanks, and soldiers; and with these the elder of the two had soon engaged so brisk a conversation, and exchanged so many loud guffaws and country witticisms, that the group momentarily increased in number.
The younger companion, in whom the reader has already recognised Dick Shelton, sat from the first somewhat backward, and gradually drew himself away. He listened, indeed, closely, but he opened not his mouth; and by the grave expression of his countenance, he made but little account of his companion’s pleasantries.
At last his eye, which travelled continually to and fro, and kept a guard upon all the entrances of the house, lit upon a little procession entering by the main gate and crossing the court in an oblique direction. Two ladies, muffled in thick furs, led the way, and were followed by a pair of waiting-women and four stout men-at-arms. The next moment they had disappeared within the house; and Dick, slipping through the crowd of loiterers in the shed, was already giving hot pursuit.
“The taller of these twain was Lady Brackley,” he thought; “and where Lady Brackley is, Joan will not be far.”
At the door of the house the four men-at-arms had ceased to follow, and the ladies were now mounting the stairway of polished oak, under no better escort than that of the two waiting-women. Dick followed close behind. It was already the dusk of the day; and in the house the darkness of the night had almost come. On the stair-landings, torches flared in iron holders; down the long, tapestried corridors, a lamp burned by every door. And where the door stood open, Dick could look in upon arras-covered walls and rush-bescattered floors, glowing in the light of the wood fires.
Two floors were passed, and at every landing the younger and shorter of the two ladies had looked back keenly at the monk. He, keeping his eyes lowered, and affecting the demure manners that suited his disguise, had but seen her once, and was unaware that he had attracted her attention. And now, on the third floor, the party separated, the younger lady continuing to ascend alone, the other, followed by the waiting-maids, descending the corridor to the right.
Dick mounted with a swift foot, and holding to the corner, thrust forth his head and followed the three women with his eyes. Without turning or looking behind them, they continued to descend the corridor.
“It is right well,” thought Dick. “Let me but know my Lady Brackley’s chamber, and it will go hard an I find not Dame Hatch upon an errand.”
And just then a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and, with a bound and a choked cry, he turned to grapple his assailant.
He was somewhat abashed to find, in the person whom he had so roughly seized, the short young lady in the furs. She, on her part, was shocked and terrified beyond expression, and hung trembling in his grasp.
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| “Madam,” said Dick, releasing her, “I cry you a thousand pardons; but I have no eyes behind, and, by the mass, I could not tell ye were a maid.”
The girl continued to look at him, but, by this time, terror began to be succeeded by surprise, and surprise by suspicion. Dick, who could read these changes on her face, became alarmed for his own safety in that hostile house.
“Fair maid,” he said, affecting easiness, “suffer me to kiss your hand, in token ye forgive my roughness, and I will even go.”
“Y’ are a strange monk, young sir,” returned the young lady, looking him both boldly and shrewdly in the face; “and now that my first astonishment hath somewhat passed away, I can spy the layman in each word you utter. What do ye here? Why are ye thus sacrilegiously tricked out? Come ye in peace or war? And why spy ye after Lady Brackley like a thief?”
“Madam,” quoth Dick, “of one thing I pray you to be very sure: I am no thief. And even if I come here in war, as in some degree I do, I make no war upon fair maids, and I hereby entreat them to copy me so far, and to leave me be. For, indeed, fair mistress, cry out — if such be your pleasure — cry but once, and say what ye have seen, and the poor gentleman before you is merely a dead man. I cannot think ye would be cruel,” added Dick; and taking the girl’s hand gently in both of his, he looked at her with courteous admiration.
“Are ye, then, a spy — a Yorkist?” asked the maid.
“Madam,” he replied, “I am indeed a Yorkist, and, in some sort, a spy. But that which bringeth me into this house, the same which will win for me the pity and interest of your kind heart, is neither of York nor Lancaster. I will wholly put my life in your discretion. I am a lover, and my name — ”
But here the young lady clapped her hand suddenly upon Dick’s mouth, looked hastily up and down and east and west, and, seeing the coast clear, began to drag the young man, with great strength and vehemence, up-stairs.
“Hush!” she said, “and come! Shalt talk hereafter.”
Somewhat bewildered, Dick suffered himself to be pulled up-stairs, bustled along a corridor, and thrust suddenly into a chamber, lit, like so many of the others, by a blazing log upon the hearth.
“Now,” said the young lady, forcing him down upon a stool, “sit ye there and attend my sovereign good pleasure. I have life and death over you, and I will not scruple to abuse my power. Look to yourself; y’ ’ave cruelly mauled my arm. He knew not I was a maid, quoth he! Had he known I was a maid, he had ta’en his belt to me, forsooth!”
And with these words, she whipped out of the room and left Dick gaping with wonder, and not very sure if he were dreaming or awake.
“Ta’en my belt to her!” he repeated. “Ta’en my belt to her!” And the recollection of that evening in the forest flowed back upon his mind, and he once more saw Matcham’s wincing body and beseeching eyes.
And then he was recalled to the dangers of the present. In the next room he heard a stir, as of a person moving; then followed a sigh, which sounded strangely near; and then the rustle of skirts and tap of feet once more began. As he stood hearkening, he saw the arras wave along the wall; there was the sound of a door being opened, the hangings divided, and, lamp in hand, Joanna Sedley entered the apartment.
She was attired in costly stuffs of deep and warm colours, such as befit the winter and the snow. Upon her head, her hair had been gathered together and became her as a crown. And she, who had seemed so little and so awkward in the attire of Matcham, was now tall like a young willow, and swam across the floor as though she scorned the drudgery of walking.
Without a start, without a tremor, she raised her lamp and looked at the young monk.
“What make ye here, good brother?” she inquired. “Ye are doubtless ill-directed. Whom do ye require? And she set her lamp upon the bracket.
“Joanna,” said Dick; and then his voice failed him. “Joanna,” he began again, “ye said ye loved me; and the more fool I, but I believed it!”
“Dick!” she cried. “Dick!”
And then, to the wonder of the lad, this beautiful and tall young lady made but one step of it, and threw her arms about his neck and gave him a hundred kisses all in one.
“Oh, the fool fellow!” she cried. “Oh, dear Dick! Oh, if ye could see yourself! Alack!” she added, pausing. “I have spoilt you, Dick! I have knocked some of the paint off. But that can be mended. What cannot be mended, Dick — or I much fear it cannot! — is my marriage with Lord Shoreby.”
“Is it decided, then?” asked the lad.
“To-morrow, before noon, Dick, in the abbey church,” she answered, “John Matcham and Joanna Sedley both shall come to a right miserable end. There is no help in tears, or I could weep mine eyes out. I have not spared myself to pray, but Heaven frowns on my petition. And, dear Dick — good Dick — but that ye can get me forth of this house before the morning, we must even kiss and say good-bye.”
“Nay,” said Dick, “not I; I will never say that word. ’Tis like despair; but while there’s life, Joanna, there is hope. Yet will I hope. Ay, by the mass, and triumph! Look ye, now, when ye were but a name to me, did I not follow — did I not rouse good men — did I not stake my life upon the quarrel? And now that I have seen you for what ye are — the fairest maid and stateliest of England — think ye I would turn? — if the deep sea were there, I would straight through it; if the way were full of lions, I would scatter them like mice.”
“Ay,” she said, dryly, “ye make a great ado about a sky-blue robe!”
“Nay, Joan,” protested Dick, “’tis not alone the robe. But, lass, ye were disguised. Here am I disguised; and, to the proof, do I not cut a figure of fun — a right fool’s figure?”
“Ay, Dick, an’ that ye do!” she answered, smiling.
“Well, then!” he returned, triumphant. “So was it with you, poor Matcham, in the forest. In sooth, ye were a wench to laugh at. But now!”
So they ran on, holding each other by both hands, exchanging smiles and lovely looks, and melting minutes into seconds; and so they might have continued all night long. But presently there was a noise behind them; and they were aware of the short young lady, with her finger on her lips.
“Saints!” she cried, “but what a noise ye keep! Can ye not speak in compass? And now, Joanna, my fair maid of the woods, what will ye give your gossip for bringing you your sweetheart?”
Joanna ran to her, by way of answer, and embraced her fierily.
“And you, sir,” added the young lady, “what do ye give me?”
“Madam,” said Dick, “I would fain offer to pay you in the same money.”
“Come, then,” said the lady, “it is permitted you.”
But Dick, blushing like a peony, only kissed her hand.
“What ails ye at my face, fair sir?” she inquired, curtseying to the very ground; and then, when Dick had at length and most tepidly embraced her, “Joanna,” she added, “your sweetheart is very backward under your eyes; but I warrant you, when first we met he was more ready. I am all black and blue, wench; trust me never, if I be not black and blue! And now,” she continued, “have ye said your sayings? for I must speedily dismiss the paladin.”
But at this they both cried out that they had said nothing, that the night was still very young, and that they would not be separated so early.
“And supper?” asked the young lady. “Must we not go down to supper?”
“Nay, to be sure!” cried Joan. “I had forgotten.”
“Hide me, then,” said Dick, “put me behind the arras, shut me in a chest, or what ye will, so that I may be here on your return. Indeed, fair lady,” he added, “bear this in mind, that we are sore bested, and may never look upon each other’s face from this night forward till we die.”
At this the young lady melted; and when, a little after, the bell summoned Sir Daniel’s household to the board, Dick was planted very stiffly against the wall, at a place where a division in the tapestry permitted him to breathe the more freely, and even to see into the room.
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Вычисление основной дактилоскопической формулы Вычислением основной дактоформулы обычно занимается следователь. Для этого все десять пальцев разбиваются на пять пар...
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Расчетные и графические задания Равновесный объем - это объем, определяемый равенством спроса и предложения...
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Кардиналистский и ординалистский подходы Кардиналистский (количественный подход) к анализу полезности основан на представлении о возможности измерения различных благ в условных единицах полезности...
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Обзор компонентов Multisim Компоненты – это основа любой схемы, это все элементы, из которых она состоит. Multisim оперирует с двумя категориями...
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ФАКТОРЫ, ВЛИЯЮЩИЕ НА ИЗНОС ДЕТАЛЕЙ, И МЕТОДЫ СНИЖЕНИИ СКОРОСТИ ИЗНАШИВАНИЯ Кроме названных причин разрушений и износов, знание которых можно использовать в системе технического обслуживания и ремонта машин для повышения их долговечности, немаловажное значение имеют знания о причинах разрушения деталей в результате старения...
Различие эмпиризма и рационализма Родоначальником эмпиризма стал английский философ Ф. Бэкон. Основной тезис эмпиризма гласит: в разуме нет ничего такого...
Индекс гингивита (PMA) (Schour, Massler, 1948) Для оценки тяжести гингивита (а в последующем и регистрации динамики процесса) используют папиллярно-маргинально-альвеолярный индекс (РМА)...
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Шов первичный, первично отсроченный, вторичный (показания) В зависимости от времени и условий наложения выделяют швы:
1) первичные...
Предпосылки, условия и движущие силы психического развития Предпосылки –это факторы. Факторы психического развития –это ведущие детерминанты развития чел. К ним относят: среду...
Анализ микросреды предприятия Анализ микросреды направлен на анализ состояния тех составляющих внешней среды, с которыми предприятие находится в непосредственном взаимодействии...
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