CHAPTER V SIR MATTHEW DANE GOES WALKING 66 THAT night Squire Silas, lean and grim, sat over the embers of a dying fire alone. To him came Sir Matthew, crying, My dear brother--!" and in tender affliction could say no more. Impulsively he flung out both hands. Dane looked up. Silas "You are kind, Matthew," he said quietly, and held one hand a moment. So Matthew sat down and wiped his mouth. "You have heard, then?" he said in a tone of relief, then became lachrymose again: "I heard but an hour ago. I ordered my horse on the instant. Dear brother, a sore blow!" Silas stared at the fire. 66 SO 'Would that it had been I!" he answered, and Sir Matthew started at an aspiration marvellous. "Better the old tree. But I am proud of my son." "Proud?" Sir Matthew echoed and gaped. Proud-oh-ay-I take you. Sure I can never hold the boy guilty of treason, neither." Pale blue eyes turned upon him glittering, eloquent of scorn. "Treason? Treason to slay this whoremaster, this man of blood, this "Silas! Silas!" Sir Matthew cried in horror. "Bethink you-'tis your King!" "I have no King but God. C I am earnest in prayer that the man Charles Stuart may not go down to his grave in peace. I give thanks that my boy hath sought to be his Ehud." "But they say it was murder he planned,' Sir Matthew suggested, who had excellent knowledge of what they said. Silas laughed. "Murder? Did Jehu murder who smote Jehoram in his chariot? Did-" A cry at the door happily cut off the catalogue. "Master Tom have a bubbled of he! Ho, ho! Master Tom have a bubbled of he!" and Mr Smithers waddled cursing into the room while the old butler chuckled behind him. Sir Matthew started up, became pale yellow, and stammered: "I demands for to search this house and tenements in the King's name!" he cried. "Ay, ay. Ye may seerch he up and seerch he down, and seerch he cross and athurt and find pig's leavings for all, Bandylegs," the butler chuckled. Silas Dane turned, made a sign for silence, and glowered upon Mr Smithers. "You have searched once, fellow." "And fine and naughty treasonous writings we did find laid by, stick me. Now, Mr Jack Presbyter, your rogue of a son be turned bolter, and I be here to smoke un out of his hole." "Mr Dane escaped you, sirrah?" cried Sir Matthew. "The prigster scoured with our horses." Sir Matthew suddenly restrained his wrath and told him nothing. Whereat Mr Smithers laughed. "Ods bones, I knew as one man would be mighty gay at hearing of it. Odso, come on, boys!" The damp tipstaffs surged in, and with oaths and violence to the wainscot began to hunt. But since Mr Dane was somewhere else they did not find him there. While they rummaged, even when they were gone, Silas Dane sat still in his big chair and rested his head on his hand. Sir Matthew fidgeted, watching Mr Smithers furtively, who shrugged his shoulders and grinned when he caught Sir Matthew's eye. Mr Smithers went out last. And then, "Brother, I am heartily glad," said Sir Matthew, having taken time to mature that feeling. A ghostly chuckle came from behind the door, where Mr Smithers listened. Silas did not look up. "I would have chosen that he should die," he said slowly. 66 'Lud, brother!" Sir Matthew was shocked by the callous sire. "Not without blood will the deliverance come. Not without blood. The Beast is with power. I would have had my boy of the martyrs. God forgive me if that be frowardness. Many must be killed before the idolater, seed of that old serpent, Charles Stuart Sir "Brother! brother!" Matthew cried, catching a rustle at the door. "Have a care!" Silas Dane looked up and Sir Matthew pointed to the keyhole. Silas laughed. 66 Ay, it were grievous that you should be taken listening to treason. You had best flee speedily, Matthew." "Brother, you are unjust," cried Sir Matthew indignant. Silas laughed again. "Nay, go, go!" And that was Sir Matthew's desire. So "Not in anger, then!" he said, and held out his hand. "Sure, we are brothers always." He looked into his brother's cold eyes. According to his expectation, he found Mr Smithers without, and from him heard the lamentable history of the dive and the hat and the horses. At the end of which he was constrained to call Mr Smithers an ass. "So I be, or I would not be what I be," said Mr Smithers philosophically. "But what I asks 'e, Sir Matthew, be this: not what be I, but where be he?" To which Sir Matthew, being exceeding angry, replied by calling him fool again. So Mr Smithers wished him pleasant dreams and went off to hunt in the barns. The white mist hid the ground and condensed in chill drops on Sir Matthew's nose. On the park of Bourne lay the dead silence of a winter's night. When his own horse whinnied Sir Matthew started in the saddle and peered round. He saw nothing but the wet white cloud, heard nothing, and so passed out of the park, and on by the track through the heather. Here and there a fir loomed gaunt above him or a clump of gorse rose dark out of the mist; but still the only sound was of his own riding, the splash of a hoof in a stagnant pool. He had come over the brow of the little hill to the corner where four tracks met when first he heard a thud behind him. He reined up, listened, could hear nothing. He rode on again. Again came the sound of hoofs. "Who comes?" he cried, reining round. On the word came the scurry of a canter, a horseman broke through the mist to his side. "Dear uncle, should I leave you without thanks?" cried Mr Dane, and caught his uncle's bridle. "Ride on, brave knight!" he jerked the horse round, and they trotted on shoulder to shoulder. "Tom-my dear boy - this roughness-let me give you joy." 66 Dear uncle-my_wetness-you shall give me your cloak." Mr Dane, spurring on, disrobed his amazed uncle. "Also your hat. Dear uncle, thank heaven that I had no wig to lose. Else had you gone home bald as you were born. And now, dear uncle, your purse !” "Dear lad, this is folly!" Sir Matthew cried. "O, stop and consider 66 Nay, trot and deliver!" Sir Matthew tried to rein up. "Dear uncle" Mr Dane slipped his own reins under his leg, caught Sir Matthew's in his left hand, and so freeing his right, delivered a lusty buffet-"you outrage the ties of kinship," he said plaintively, as his uncle retired backward over the tail of his steed. His uncle had no more than sat up and pushed the wig out of his eyes when Mr Dane was standing over him. "You grieve me. Nay, you pain me. Do you rub yourself? |