Traitor or patriot?

CHAPTER XXIX.

A WELCOME HOME.

"Past three o' the clock, and a fine starlight night," piped the old watchman, as he shuffled along, bell and lantern in hand, down Newmarket High Street. "Past three o' the clock."

"Hullo! Master Diogenes. Have a care where you're running to," cried a deep good-humoured voice, as the old fellow came trundling full-tilt against the tall, broad-shouldered figure of a man dressed in gray, who was just about to vault on to the back of a fine black horse standing before the door of the Silver Leopard. "Are you looking for an honest man?"

"I've found him anyhow, Master Alworth," replied the old man, half lifting his lantern to the face of the speaker, which was shaded by a hat of gray felt, whose broad brim almost covered the long iron-gray locks of his periwig. "'Tis the early bird that catches the worm, they say," continued he. "But you be astir betimes indeed, Master Alworth."

"I've a longish journey before me."

The watchman.

"Cambridge?" asked the old fellow.

"Nay. Farther by many a mile," answered the other, vaulting into the saddle.

"The powers alive! You don't say so! Well, you seem in mighty good trim for the task anyhow! 'Tis many a month,—years not to say—since I've noticed ye so springy-like about the knees, Master Alworth."

"H'm," said the traveller, passing his hand across the lower half of his face and then down his thighs. "But I must mind, or I shall be paying for my agility."

"Ay, ay. It don't do to be making too free when us is gettin' well on in our threescore, do it? But happen 'tis some good stroke o' business as is greasin' the wheels for ye," slyly laughed the old fellow. "Coin's a rare mender of a man's paces. 'Tis money—"

"Makes the mare to go," laughed the horseman. "Try the recipe yourself, friend," and he threw a crown-piece upon the ground.

Not without a half-suppressed exclamation of surprise at the goldsmith's unwonted liberality, albeit Master Alworth was no skinflint, the old man picked up the coin, and contemplated it with affectionate admiration. "I never see likenesses of old Rowley ever pleases me so well as these do," he said. "Eh, Master Alworth?"

"They're well enough," said the horseman, with a preoccupied shrug, as he stooped to adjust his stirrup.

"Tho', to be sure," continued the old man, "I grant you 'tis mightily handsomer than ever Charles was, or is like to be. For 'tis few on us grows comelier as we gets on in the years. And there's no doubt this here picture makes the best of him. But there, 'tis part o' kings' trades to be flattered, 'tan't oftentimes as they stumble upon truth."

"Ods-fish!" laughed the other, "'tis seemingly a deal more likely to stumble upon them!"

"Ay—Past three o' the clock! and a fine starlight night—you may say that, for stumblin' 'tis, an no mistake, when you get no heed nor thanks neither for your pains. Maybe as you've heard—for the tale's in everybody's mouth by now—that there came one yesterday mornin' to the king, to warn him o' some fresh plottin's that's hatchin'. And what does Charles do, but turn on his heel, along with all his tag-rag an' bobtail o' lords an' ladies, an' leave the young gentleman to take care o' himself—Past three o' the clock, an' a starlight night—what d'ye think o' that?"

"I think 'twas mightily ill-bred of him," said the horseman.

News.

"Well, pray Heaven the breedin' be the baddest part o't, and keep his majesty from any worse dangers than this night's," said the old man fervently.

"The fire, do you mean? But—'twas nothing after all?"

"Just a flash in the pan. An up-an'-ha'-done-wi't piece of business. Not so much, as far as I can make out, as a hair o' the tails o' one o' his little spannel dogs scorched."

"And the king?"

"He? oh ha!—near four o' the clock, an'—not to be found high nor low, so 'tis said. But what won't folks say? He knows where he is, depend upon't; 'tis not the first time as Charles has bin mislaid. He'll show up again, safe as the nose on your face. A cat with nine lives is old Rowley, God bless him!"

"Well, well, adieu, friend!"

"And a safe journey to your worship—Just four o' the clock, an' a bright sunshiny morning," called out the old man, trudging on and ringing his bell with such tremendous energy, as if to make up for any little delays, that it completely drowned the clatter of Stars and Garters' hoofs as she cantered over the cobble-stones of the High Street.

Another horseman.

Meanwhile Lawrence Lee, only halting to snatch a meal by the way, and to give his horse half an hour's rest, reached Stanstead Church, just as the youngsters let loose from morning dame school were pranking among the gravestones, and plundering the hawthorn hedges. Tired out, but lighter of heart than he could remember for many a long day, he threw them a gay quip as he passed. Bang, clash, rattle, went the churchyard wicket, away all over the dusty road the poor may blossoms, scattered and trampled under ruthless little feet all trotting after the big horse's legs. And no marvel neither; for let alone the merry jokes of Master Lee, who always was the most popular creature in the world with the young fry of the neighbourhood, there was a thing to be seen popping its head in and out of the deep pocket of his doublet in the most strange fashion. Head, forsooth! a bunch of brown satin ribbons you mean, or some fairing of the sort for Mistress Ruth Rumbold, that wobbled to and fro with the horse's movements.

"'Tis a dog."

"Naa, 'tes a dog, tell'ee," whispered a five-year-old wiseacre under his breath.

"Dog!" contemptuously laughed a wise virgin of six, whose canine circle of acquaintance was limited to huge farm mastiffs and gypsy curs. "'Tes a silk pincush'n for Madam Lee, cain't you see the brown and whoite bows to the corners o't."

"Pincush'n! bows! Thems its ears an' its oyes a gogglin'. Pincush'ns doesn't goggle their oyes; 'tes a dog, ain't it, Marster Lee?"

"Something of the sort," answered Lee, carefully drawing the little King Charles from his snug hiding-place, and exhibiting its roly-poly body to the public gaze; but the shrieks of delight greeting its appearance, so startled its unaccustomed ears, that terror got the better of Master Médor's courtly breeding, and sent him scuffling back into the recesses of his friend's riding-coat; and amidst a general groan at this disappointing man[oe]uvre, Lee ambled on at a good round trot, which quickly brought him within sight of the grass-grown broken tower tops of Nether Hall. It was now close upon mid-day, and the sun shone hotly, so that the deserted look of the meadows where the haymakers had just commenced work would have occasioned their young proprietor small surprise, even could his preoccupied mind have spared the matter a thought. Just a day it was for creeping away into the shade of the hedges, or of the alders overhanging the cool water shallows, to munch your rye-bread and bacon, and drink your draught of milk or small-beer out of your old tin can; and one or two old crippled men and women seemed the only folks in the way to give the master a welcome home.

A posse comitatus.

Eager to relieve the anxiety he felt his long and unexpected absence must be causing his mother, Lawrence Lee had no eyes for the strange stares full of wonderment and suspicion the old gaffers and goodies threw after him; but he was startled out of himself as he reached the last field skirting the lane which led to the house, by a confused hubbub of voices and angry discussion, as if the whole parish had collected between its lofty hedgerows. The spot, ordinarily so peaceful and so silent, save for the singing of the birds in the big elm boughs overhead, was now a veritable Babel; and breaking through a gap in the hedge, fresh made by the trampling of a hundred hobnailed shoes, he leaped the intervening ditch, and alighting in their very midst, demanded in imperative tones, what they did there?

For one instant, all stood as if confounded by his apparition. A thunderbolt fallen among them would have startled them less. Here had they been scouring the country pretty well since daybreak, north, south, east, west, and all points of the compass between, among Epping glades, along Hainhault hedgerows, away over Amwell, Hoddesdon, Wideford, Ware, Waltham—far and wide, the hue and cry had gone. Deep into oozing ditches, and hollow tree trunks, and pigsties, and barns, and farmhouse cellars, and gable roofs, and canal barges, and river craft, pitchforks, and sticks, and cudgels of all sorts and sizes had prodded and poked in search of farmer Lawrence Lee.

"What is the meaning of this?" indignantly demanded Lee, as half a dozen strapping fellows clad in the local militia uniform broke through the crowd of smock-frocks, and closed round him. "Is this the way you do your duty, Master Sergeant?" he went on addressing that officer, who had seized his bridle-rein.

Arrested for murder.

"Ay, it be, Master Cap'n," grinned the fellow—for Lee was the head of their company—"an' a moighty proper pretty way too. You be our prisoner!"

"Prisoner!"

"Oy, oy, it be all roight, ship-shape. You be arrested."

"On what charge?"

"That be no business o' yourn."

"The murder o' Sheriff Goodenough," shrieked an open-mouthed matron. "The murder o' Sheriff Goodenough, Master Innocence. Him as lies dead in the Warder's Room at Master Rumbold's?"

"By whose charge?" said Lee, passing his hand across his eyes, like a man striving to see the light.

"You want to be knowing more than's good for you," sneeringly replied the sergeant; "'tis all roight. Him as asks no questions, woan't be telled no lies. I warrant ya 't be no use kickin'. Eh—yow! yow! stand still, you brute," yelled the brave Hector, as Lawrence's horse evinced a decided disposition to make a trial of his heels, and sent the by-standers to a safer distance. Lee, however, quieted the animal, and then with a composure of manner that worked everybody up to an unendurable pitch of exasperation, he again demanded his accuser's name.

"Colonel Richard Rumsey," answered the spokesman, thinking it wiser perhaps to comply.

"Very good," said Lawrence dismounting, and consigning his horse to one of his own stablemen who stood near.

"Come! Quick march, cap'n," said the sergeant, regaining all his wonted valour, as the sound of the departing horse's hoofs grew fainter and fainter.

"Where to?" said Lawrence, facing about.

"To the King's Arms!"

"The King's Arms, to begin with, and then—" the man chuckled.

"That will do," calmly said Lee. "What do you mean by this?" he added, a purple red flush of wounded pride suffusing all his face, as a stout cord was flung over his shoulders from behind, and a dozen hands secured it.

"Only a little compliment we pay to plotters and suchlike folk," laughed the sergeant.

Mob law.

Lawrence was about to make a violent resistance; but suddenly his face changed, a look of deep humiliation came over it, and he stopped short. "Do I not deserve this?" he said to himself, and then he submitted quietly; and as if he were in his old position as leader of these men, and not the led one, he turned and faced about for the Rye; only delaying for a moment to charge some of the terror-stricken women-servants of the farm with a cheering message for his mother, and to bid them conceal the truth from her, as up till now they had contrived to do—"till he should return," as he said, regardless of the mocking gibes of the rabble, pressing upon all sides.

CHAPTER XXX

A TRAVELLER FROM NEWMARKET.

"This a fair scene," said the king to himself, as between three and four o'clock in the afternoon he reached the rising ground which commanded the familiar prospect of the square battlemented roof and tall spiral chimney-shaft of the Rye House. "I think," he pondered on, "if I were not king of England, I would be a maltster, and live in such a corner of it, as this Master Rumbold does, without a care to fret me, and with one fair daughter, and my honest friend Farmer Lee for my nearest neighbour. But yonder," continued Charles, as his glance caught the gables of the King's Arms, "lies our rendezvous. Now, may my luck be as good as Master Isaak Walton's, and bring me as good a supper of fish out of yonder little silver stream, as he used to find under the old hostelry's roof. 'Tis quite certain at all events," he went on, smilingly to himself, as he caught sight of the buxom figure of Mistress Sheppard, who was standing at the porch expectantly, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked up the road, "that this present hostess of the King's Arms, is as cleanly and handsome-looking as her predecessor could be; and as to her civility, if Master Lee's word is to be taken—"

Pleasant quarters.

"Bless the darling!" murmured Mistress Sheppard, making a profound curtsey to the king, as Stars and Garters stopped of her own sweet will before the porch, and neighed a greeting.

"Pretty creature!" she murmured on under her breath, hardly knowing whether the sight of her favourite, or of her favourite's rider, more originated the agreeable fluttering about her heart; for at the first glimpse she had recognized the king; and guessed at the consequent success of Lawrence Lee's mission. "Will your Majesty be pleased to dismount?" she said in low glad tones, as she laid her hand lightly on the mare's neck.

"Why, bless my soul!" ejaculated Sheppard, who now made his appearance in the porch, to receive the new-comer, and rubbing his eyes to stare at the horse. "Stars and Garters—as I'm alive!"

"You're not alive, man. You're asleep," laughed his wife, a trifle nervously, and placing her ample figure in such a position as to intercept his view of the horse, as it disappeared under the ostler's care in the direction of the stables. "Stars and Garters! What next, I wonder? 'Tis all Stars and Garters in thy sleepy eyes! Come, stir about man. Waken up, and take his Ma—take this good gentleman indoors, an' lay the table, while I see about somethin' for him to eat."

"Not forgetting a trout. Eh, Mistress?" called the guest after her.

"Ay. I'll warrant your—worship. A right royal one 'tis too," answered the beaming hostess.

"One would ha' guessed she'd bin' expectin' of him," muttered Sheppard, still rubbing the mystification out of his eyes, while he preceded his guest to the inn parlour, "and him a moighty sort of a favourite too. Now, there's a many that comes along, as she thinks naught o' puttin' off with chub; nasty fork-boned watery skelintons o' things. But my foine old gentleman here, must be havin' his trout, and his curtseys, and down bobbins into the bargain." And Master Sheppard, who, as luck would have it, had been a bit put about all day with one thing and another, having first rather sulkily flicked a few stray crumbs with his snow-white apron from the bright oaken table to the floor, proceeded to lay the cloth.

"Any news stirring in these parts?" asked the guest in careless tones, as he threw himself comfortably among the cushions of a settle drawn up in the deep bay of the window looking upon the road.

A surly host.

Now there was a good deal of news stirring; but Sheppard, contrary to his garrulous wont, seemed in no mood to impart it; and he only replied by a shrug of his lean shoulders, and a shake of the head, casting at the same time uneasy and sheepish glances towards a stout broad-shouldered man, seated in the embrasure of a distant window smoking an enormous Dutch pipe, whose hat was drawn low down over his eyes, which were apparently absorbed in gloomy contemplation of the huge jack of ale on the table before him.

Meaning words.

"Be you from nor'ards, Master Traveller?" said Sheppard to the new-comer, as if in haste to turn the current of conversation.

"Cambridge," answered the guest, craning his neck towards the window, as if he expected somebody.

"Eh! be you, now?" said Sheppard, rousing up a little, and a gleam of intelligence breaking into his eyes. "Then I doubt you can tell me if 'tis true that May Queen has beat Satan by ten paces, as the talk goes she has?"

"Quite true."

"An' what," gleefully nodded Sheppard, "what's your notions over Flatfoot?"

"Oh! safe to win."

"The king's own horse, an't he?"

The traveller nodded.

"Maybe as you've a score on her yourself?" said Sheppard with a knowing wink.

"Rather a heavy one. Yes," replied the traveller, suppressing a faint sigh.

"Well, well," consolingly said Sheppard. "An' you'll make a potful, depend upon't. Trust Old Rowley for tellin' good horseflesh from carrion."

"Ay. As he's able to tell honest subjects from crop-eared knaves," laughed the stranger, drawing close up to the table, and pouring out a bumper of ruby red wine from the tall silver-lipped flagon which Mistress Sheppard had just brought in, and placed at his elbow. "Shall we drink his health, friend?" he added, brimming another glass, and pushing it toward Sheppard.

A more agonizing expression than the one breaking on Sheppard's face at this challenge, it would be impossible to conceive. Half-way his trembling fingers carried the goblet to his lips that quivered with strange contortions; then as his oblique stolen glances crossed those of the silent smoker, uplifted towards the shadows cast by the ivy half covering the lattice, his cheeks turned white as his apron, and he set down the glass untasted.

"Come man! what ails you?" said the stranger, looking up at the unhappy Sheppard, and then not without a touch of suspicion at the flagon. "Or is anything wrong with the wine?"

"No, no," gasped Sheppard, "it's very nice wine indeed;" and he gazed at the contents of his cup, with affectionate admiration. "Very nice. But I—I—I'm—ordered not—to—to—" Then he broke down hopelessly.

Dinner for a King.

"Not to touch it, eh?" and laughing heartily at his host's perturbation, the stranger turned his attention to the trout which Mistress Sheppard was now setting before him with her own fair hands. "And who's your medical adviser?" he continued, as he made a deep incision into the gleaming armour of the fish. "I' faith! if 'tis yonder gentleman," and he gave a half glance towards the silent stranger, "I'd seek another opinion if I were you. What is this?" he went on, turning to inspect the contents of a little cruet-tray which Mistress Sheppard was handing to him. "Verjuice and vinegar! Thanks, no. I'll have none of them. For though 'tis said they're good for the digestion, they always spoil mine," and he pushed away his plate, almost untasted, and his dark eyes wandered towards the silent guest. "What have you there?" he went on, as Sheppard with vast pomp and circumstance, placed on the table a large dish.

"Sirloin," answered Sheppard, flourishing off the silver cover, huge as Mambrino's helmet. "Sirloin—your worship," he reiterated obsequiously, as if he was anxious to patch up the appalling hole he had just now made in his manners. "Prime cut. Fit for a king."

Dangerous names.

"I'll have none of it. I cannot wait longer," said Charles, impatiently looking again towards the window. "I came here by appointment with a—friend, who does not appear disposed to be punctual. And yet, by his own tale, he lives not so far off from here. His name is—"

"Hush!" whispered Mistress Sheppard in his ear, as she bent to replace his plate with a clean one.

"H'm—No matter," went on Charles. "We—I am not accustomed to be kept waiting," and he rose, and took up his hat. "Tell the young gentleman when he does come, that he will find me at Whitehall—"

"Hush—sh!" again whispered Mistress Sheppard.

"H'm—not far from the water stairs. But he knows my address. So come, Master Landlord, have with you, and find me a fresh horse. And pray be quick about it, for if I would sleep at home to-night, I must be brisk. I cry your pardon, Mistress Sheppard. You were about to speak?" he added in courteous tones, as he perceived his hostess smoothing her apron, and her lips opening and shutting, and opening again.

A fair visitor.

"So please you, there is one," answered Mistress Sheppard. "Nay, names matter little. One who earnestly desires an audience—a word with you, before you go. A young girl—"

"Let her come in," said Charles with animation.

CHAPTER XXXI.

RUMSEY MEETS HIS MATCH.

"Mistress, your servant," said the king, his voice dropping to a gentle gravity, as the door opened, and disclosed the gray-clad figure of Ruth Rumbold. "What can we do for you?" he added, striving to conceal the curiosity he could not but feel at sight of the pale face, and the sad wearied look of the beautiful downcast eyes. "Or do you perhaps bring me the reckoning?" he went on, as, encouraged by his kindly tones, she tendered him a large folded paper which she carried in her hand, making a profound curtsey as she did so, at the same time lifting her eyes to his friendly gaze, so that he could read in them of the heart too full for words.

"Ods-fish, it must be something of a heavy one!" he added laughingly, as he turned the paper about, examining its seal; "but it bears no superscription, Mistress—Mistress—are you not Mistress Ruth Rumbold?" She curtseyed again, "It bears no superscription?" he reiterated, and hesitating to break open the seal.

"It is meant for your—your—"

"Worship," prompted Mistress Sheppard.

"Your worship's reading," said Ruth.

"Why, what have we here?" he said, glancing over its contents with awakened curiosity. "'Tis made out in two hands! 'I, Thomas'—who is it? 'Thomas Good'—I' faith! 'tis less like handwriting, than as if a spider had dipped his legs in ink, and then danced a coranto on this fair white paper meadow. Pray had the gentleman his wits when he indited this?"

"Indeed, indeed," cried Ruth, "he had, but not his strength—your worship. He was dying."

"Oh, I crave your pardon," said the king, growing grave again, and dropping his gaze from Ruth's troubled face, to the paper; "'being now at the point of death.' Ay, ay, I see now, I should have read further, 'by the hand of the man Richard'—what's that noise?" he went on, breaking off in his deciphering endeavours, as a distant chorus of yells and shouts and hideous cat-calls suddenly broke upon the drowsy afternoon silence. "Your neighbourhood," he added with an amused smile, as he turned to continue his task, "would appear to be less peaceful than it looks. 'The man Richard—'"

The strange guest speaks.

"Maybe 'tis your friend come at last to keep his appointment," said the stranger, whose eyes had for many minutes past been fixed on Charles. "Better late than never, you know," he added, putting his pipe back between his lips, which were curled into an ugly leer; and thrusting both hands into the pockets of his small clothes, he settled himself to watch the approach of a dense motley rabble enveloped in a cloud of dust, which suddenly broke with a renewed outburst of uproar, over the low wood garden-fence, trampling it under foot, till it lay scattered in all directions. On, on, tramp, tramp, surging to the very windows it came, amidst shrieks and whoops, and cries of "Shame! shame! give him a yard o' rope, fair play! God save the king!—The gallows tree's too good for him!"—Tramp, tramp, fell the heavy tread of hobnailed shoes, until the forest of pitchforks, cudgels, rusty firearms, spades, spuds, rakes, and every conceivable weapon and tool brandished aloft by the strange crew fell apart, and disclosed the cord-bound figure of Lawrence Lee.

The prisoner.

"What!" cried the king, starting in amazement. "Master Lee?"

"And a right magnificent progress he appears to have made," said the stranger, with an insolent laugh, as he carefully laid aside his pipe and rose from his seat. "Ho! come, guards," he shouted through the open window; "bring in your prisoner;" and hustled forward along the broad passage, despite the proddings and fisticuffs dealt right and left by his guards, against whom Mistress Sheppard seconded her indignant protests, by the vigorous aid of her own hands and finger nails, Lee, deprived of all power of helping himself, stumbled head first into the presence of the king.

"What does this mean?" cried Charles, as Lee, maintaining a stout resistance, succeeded for a moment in elbowing off the worst of the press, and hurrying forward, dropped, breathless and spent, upon one knee at the king's feet.

"Your Majesty," he began.

"The king?!!" broke in one universal shout of amazement from all present, excepting from the lips of Mistress Sheppard and Ruth Rumbold, and then an awe-stricken silence fell.

"Tell me—" began the king.

"I can tell your Majesty but this," said Lee, his voice falling clear and resonant through the utter stillness, "that I have been arrested by the order of the man who stands there, Richard Rumsey; but on what charge, I wait for him to say."

"On the charge," said Rumsey, advancing from the shadows, like some savage beast from its lair, with an evil twitching of his lips, and a serpent-like glitter in his cold eyes, which, however, carefully eluded the gaze of all present—"the charge of the murder of Sheriff Goodenough."

"What?!" shouted Lee, bounding to his feet.

"Committed," calmly continued Rumsey, still looking into space, "in the Warder's Room of Master Rumbold's house yonder yesterday morning."

The witness.

"Nay, that is false," broke in Ruth, "for it wanted almost ten minutes of midnight. The clock had not struck."

"Girl!" cried Rumsey starting, and turning upon her a face grown ghastly pale; but immediately collecting himself he added, addressing the king, with a baleful smile upon his lips, "Let it be so, your M——. The young woman may be right. She is in Master Lee's confidence I doubt not; and he has whispered the gentle secret of his exploit to her. Ten minutes to midnight it might have been."

"Villain!" furiously burst forth Lee.

"And since he has imparted in sweet confidence to this—in sooth I think she just now said her name was—"

The accuser.

"Ruth Rumbold, yes," cried the girl in a loud ringing voice. "And 'tis you—you, Richard Rumsey, are the murderer of Sheriff Goodenough!"

"You are certainly mighty wise, little mistress," he rejoined with a spasmodic twitch of his pallid lips. "Your Majesty," he went on, turning jauntily to the king, and with a careless wave of his hand towards Lee, "can see how the land lies betwixt these two. And this brave young bloodsucker is indeed to be envied so fair a special pleader. But it won't do, my dear," he added, addressing Ruth in jeering tones. "'Tis too grave a matter."

"Ay, truly," said the bewildered Charles, again glancing over the paper in his hands. "Grave indeed!"

"Scoundrel! double-dyed villain!" exclaimed Lee, writhing in his cords, and glaring at Rumsey. "Is it not enough that already your soul is black with its guilt, but you must accuse another of your crime?"

"Words break no bones," coolly laughed Rumsey. "If ever now," he went on, pointing at Lee's bound hands, whose every vein stood out to bursting in his struggles to get free, "these inconvenient little knots should be loosed, you shall certainly be set to rant it at Drury Lane playhouse. You'd make Manager Betterton's fortune in a week. In the meantime," he added, turning to the king, "your Majesty sees before you the slayer of Thomas Goodenough."

For the defence.

"Ay, ay; he speaks truth at last!" cried Mistress Sheppard, and dashing forward, and squaring up to Rumsey, she shook her clenched fist in his face.

"Woman!" he snarled, retreating a step, and his ashen lips quivering apart, like a half-cowed hyena's.

"Oh! woman me as much as you please," she stormed on. "That don't frighten me much, I reckon. Yes, yes, woman I am, and Ruth here has told me all about it; and how the others being gone away—"

"Others?" wonderingly interrupted the king. "Gone away?"

"Ay, for sure. The other conspirators, your Majesty—being gone down into the vaults with Master Rumbold, to see the way they should escape by, if—when—" She hesitated a moment.

"Go on, my good woman. I understand," said the king, "when their purpose should be accomplished."

"And they left Master Goodenough, who had fallen asleep in the window, alone with this Rumsey here; and Master Goodenough, who was not for—for your Majesty being murdered, but only for being made away with like, across the water—being presently wakened up, picked a quarrel with this fellow—that is, this fellow, who was all for hacking down your Majesty and his grace of York yonder in the lane, like any butcher's oxen, picked it with him, and—Come, Ruth, child;" and seizing Ruth by the arm, Mistress Sheppard dragged her forward. "Those were his words. Tell the king how those were his words."

"Lies!" hissed Rumsey through his livid lips. "Let her bring her witnesses. Just a string of lies!"

"Those are in thy foul mouth," retorted Mistress Sheppard. "Not in this gentle child's, who found courage, Heaven helping her, for the king's sake, to make herself certain of all your evil minds were hatchin'; and then spared not what was best and dearest to her, so only that the king should be apprised of your villainy. Oh, I trow they'll be well mated man an' wife," murmured on Mistress Sheppard, gazing with proud tears in her eager eyes, from Ruth to Lawrence Lee, "when please old Time's good leisure, he shall make her a trifle older."

A parenthesis.

"Keep to the point, dear Mistress Sheppard," said Lawrence, flushing a little.

"An' what am I doin', if I aren't keepin' to't?" demanded she. "Don't I say that she spared not even you, Lawrence Lee, to the perilsome journey to Newmarket? and didn't you right willingly mind her biddin'? Oh, I'll warrant me, little Ruth has told me all; and who but me was't, that girthed Stars and Garters, not waitin' to untie—savin' your Majesty's sacred presence—to untie my nightcap, and bid ye God-speed, and sent ye both gallopin' off together?"

"This is a strange tale," said the king, as Mistress Sheppard paused for lack of breath.

The evidence.

"Ay, 'tis indeed," she went on, "and Mistress Ruth has eyes an' ears, an' uses 'em to better purpose than some folks I know"—and she threw a significant glance at her bewildered better half—"as can only stand gaffin' and gawmin' at a body. An' she used 'em to bestest purpose of all, that moment when she hided, poor lamb, inside o' yonder panel that looks into the Warder's Room, an' saw you, Richard Rumsey, commit your foul deed. And so for your witness, if you want one, why here she stands."

"Unbind this young man's arms," said the king.

Rumsey started forward with looks of well-feigned concern. "Is your Majesty mad?" he said protestingly. "'Tis indeed too venturesome—too foolhardy, if I may say so. This fellow—taken red-handed—"

"We are surety for his not running away," interrupted the king with a faint smile.

"Shall she tell more?" went on Mistress Sheppard, looking on with triumphant satisfaction, while the king's commands were being obeyed. "Do you want to know how like the Lord's own blessed Bible Samaritan this child tended the poor bleeding sinful soul, an' strove to save his poor body; but Heaven would not have it so, an' called him to his account—"

"Does your Majesty," loftily broke in Rumsey, "accept the testimony of this ranting virago, and this puling girl, or the word of a soldier?"

"He can take it, or leave it," cried Mistress Sheppard, throwing all her court manners to the winds, "like pigs leave pearls for offal. The witness of living truth," she went on in slower and solemn tones, "and of loyal hearts, is no thing to be despised. But the testimony of the dead is mightier than the angel's last trumpet; and that looks his Majesty in the face;" and Mistress Sheppard pointed to the paper in the king's hands.

The tables turned.

"It is enough," said Charles, gazing with emotion on the poor faint signature of the dying man's hand, and the somewhat tremulous but clerkly little characters beneath it. "Richard Goodenough being dead, yet speaketh. Arrest that traitor!" and he pointed to Rumsey.

Like a wild beast at bay, the guilty wretch glared round him. All chance of escape was worse than hopeless; and the guard which now left Lawrence Lee a free man, and hastened to surround their new prisoner, had apparently an easy task in securing him. Ere, however, they could touch him, he plunged his hand into his breast, and with a heavy, but lightning-quick sideways lurch, eluded the grasp of his captors, and breaking into a low rageful howl stumbled forward within a couple of paces of the king. "So then!" he cried with an imprecation, snatching his hidden hand from the bosom of his doublet.

Rumsey's last attempt.

Time only to see that it clutches some gleaming weapon which he turns with a savage thrust upon the king's breast,—time only for a moment of dumb stricken horror instantly broken by shrieks and cries mingling with the deafening report of a pistol, whose smoke as it clears in thin bluish vapour reveals Rumsey prostrate at the king's feet beneath the grip of Lawrence Lee, the fingers of the would-be regicide's right hand still grasping the pistol, whose muzzle points straight upward to the broad beam overhead, shattered and charred, and riddled with its discharged contents!

CHAPTER XXXII.

"So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.—"
                                                                                        Shakspere.

One bright June morning, a few weeks after the events recorded in this little chronicle, the large audience chamber of the palace of Whitehall is thronged with a brilliant company, in whose midst are seated King Charles and his Queen. With curious eager glances the fine lords and ladies jostle each other to obtain a closer view of the dark-eyed handsome young fellow, and the girl standing beside him, apparently some few years his junior, with whom their majesties are absorbed in conversation.

The young man's eyes, when he can spare them from the queen, turn admiringly on his companion, around whose slender neck, white as alabaster, except indeed where the saucy sun has just bestowed his touches of tan upon it—his majesty has just cast a chain of exquisitely wrought gold, from which hangs a double pendant, set with diamonds encircling the miniatures of himself and Queen Catharine. "'Tis a souvenir of our regard and affection," the king is saying. "Requital for your noble service, gold nor diamonds cannot make. These gems are but poor shadows of truth and fealty like yours, fair Mistress Ruth."

He paused, he had been about to institute some worn-out comparison between the beautiful jewels and Ruth's eyes, but a look from the queen checked him, she saw those eyes were too brimful of tears for any trifling, and as they welled over, dropping fast upon the basket on her arm, she made an attempt to speak. "This—" she faltered, slowly drawing down the handles over her arms.

"Ay?" said the king graciously, as he looked with rather expectant eyes at the basket. Could it be a present of eggs or cream or such like, from the farm?

A converted courtier.

"Médor!" he exclaimed as he lifted the lid, and the snubby muzzle, and two velvet brown eyes of the little dog peered forth. "Poor Médor! Ods-fish! we had been near forgetting thee altogether!" Notwithstanding which piece of self-confessed royal shortcoming, the small creature bestowed a lick or two on his master's hands; though it was a trifle carelessly, and he set up a whine, and vigorous efforts to wriggle back into Ruth's arms.

"Your kindness in this instance has been very cruel, Mistress Ruth," smiled the king, as he let the little creature have its way. "You have given him such hospitable entertainment since he and I parted company in the burning room at Newmarket, that now he is loth to be separated from you. Médor loves you."

Nothing could be more clear than that the dog's sentiments were fully reciprocated, judging from Ruth's caress, and the wistful look her eyes bestowed on the little creature.

"Not better than she loves Médor," said Lawrence.

"Say you so? Why then, 'twould be the breaking of two hearts to part them! A crime no conscience could endure," cried the king. "Say, fair Mistress, will you keep the little jackanapes for your own?"

Would she? Would she not? Well, as Maudlin always would have it, Ruth was a strange incomprehensible creature; and if pleasure shone in her face at the gift of that costly carkanet, what comparison did that bear to the content brightening it, as she clasped Médor her own, her very own, in her arms!

Marriage bells.

Benefits of a more substantial sort were conferred on Lawrence Lee; and the estate of Nether Hall was widened by many a broad acre, so that Farmer Lee came to be accounted one of the wealthiest landowners of the shire, and the marvel of it was, that few begrudged him this worldly good fortune; though it would be too much to say none envied his lot, when one fine morning a year or two later, old Stanstead Church bells rang a joyous peal, as he led his wife Ruth along the flower-strewn way to her new home.

Something, nay very much of the old content shines again, now at last in Ruth's face; though its placid light-hearted look is gone for ever, and the shadow of past griefs will linger on it, till, herself an aged woman, they will lay her to her rest, to wait the time when all shadows flee away.

Patriots and plotters.

Still, very bright and blessed was Ruth's future, with the love of Madam Lee, warm and deep as own mother's love could be; and the devotion of her husband, and the music of small voices that by and by began to ring about the old house, and the mysterious alleys of the hornbeam maze; but no happiness could ever efface for her the memory of her father's fate.

Stern and implacable, yielding only to the gentler side of his nature, to stifle it down again, he had deeply loved Ruth, and been loved by her with a child's heart-felt affection. Honest in his convictions, loyal to his leader the famous Argyle, bravely as he had lived, Richard Rumbold, maimed and tortured by his captors, died an ignominious death at the Market Cross at Edinburgh, two years after the exposure of the Rye House Plot.

Cruel as these tidings of his end were, it was rendered ten times crueller by the thought of all those noble hearts that perished for the cause which had exasperated more desperate, and less disciplined minds to devise the hideous lengths of bloodshed and assassination; bringing all alike to the scaffold; patriot and lofty spirits like Sydney and Russel, grovelling, revengeful self-seekers like so many of the plotters. Few escaping with their lives, excepting such scum as those who turned king's evidence like Richard Rumsey, and bought their evil breath at the price of their old hand-in-glove comrades' death.

Upon all this, Ruth in the coming years would oftentimes sit and ponder. Ardent, unshaken little Stuart royalist as she remained to her latest day, and as Master Lawrence under her good guidance came to be, it is doubtful whether either was ever brought to declare with good Madam Lee, that "the king could do no wrong." That question, however, they left uncontested, and, content with trying to do as little of it as possible themselves, did so much good as to call down upon their heads in life and in death the blessings of all the country side.

Good company.

The grandfather's part which the roll of time brought into request at Nether Hall, was excellently represented by good old bachelor Master Alworth, who was its frequent guest, and of the many tales he used to tell the little ones, they liked very much that one of the brave, dear, real grandfather who died fighting for the king on Worcester field.

Of old Maudlin, what more can be said than that she passed her uneventful later years in the snug ingle nook at Nether Hall, made much of by every member of the establishment.

Adam Lockit, being of another turn of mind, declined to forsake his quarters in the gatehouse. New masters of the old mansion might come and they might go. Maltster or magnifico, peasant or peer, but monarch of his trophy-hung little domain he remained; bequeathing it, when at last he went the way of all flesh, with his well-seasoned tales of flood and field, and hobgoblinry, to Barnaby Diggles, who superadded in fair writing (an accomplishment, by the way, for which he was beholden to his old master's daughter), that tradition of his own times, of the famous plot and conspiracy against his gracious majesty King Charles the Second—known as the Rye House Plot—and whose valuable assistance towards the putting together of this present record, it well behoves this chronicler gratefully to recognize.

The author of this story.

Need it be added that the substantial marks of the king's gratitude which were bestowed on the hostess of the King's Arms, entirely converted Master Sheppard to his wife's way of thinking? and they subsided into the happiest peacefullest pair you could find in Hertfordshire; but then Master Sheppard never again put his fingers in what his wife called "pies that weren't baked for his eatin';" and when sea-coal was wanted for the King's Arms' hearth-places, honest sea-coal it might be, but Mistress Sheppard took good care it should be conveyed overland in a proper decent wagon; and always stood by in person, to count the sacks, and to see to the bottom of them too.

As to oysters, she steadily set her face against the things, and refused ever again to admit the ghost of a shell of one inside her doors. "If chub and barbel and trout—trout such as his sacred majesty King Charles, not to speak of the renowned Master Isaak Walton before him, had partaken of under her roof, was not good enough for common wayfarin' folks, why, let 'em go farther," she said, "an' fare worse."

The end.

Spiked atop of the spiral chimney of the gatehouse, there hung for many a year the ghastly decapitated head of one of the arch conspirators, but long ago it crumbled to nothingness, and no blot now mars the scene that is as goodly and fair as old England has to show. Side by side in sweet converse, like old friends, the two rivers still wander on amid the green pastures. Still round about, and in and out of the red battlemented walls, the rooks flit, and caw their never-ending chorus, and the tall trees wave their long arms day and night, and whisper to those who list to hear it, the story of the Old Rye House.

THE END.