Stanley Weyman - The Story of Francis Cludde

I had made up my mind to sleep at St. Albans that night, and for this reason, and for others relating to the Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, in which county Stony Stratford lies, I pushed on briskly. I presently found time, however, to examine the packet of letters of which I had made spoil. On the outer wrapper I found there was no address, only an exhortation to be speedy. Off this came, therefore, without ceremony, and was left in the dirt. Inside I found two sealed epistles, each countersigned on the wrapper, "Stephen Winton."

"Ho! ho!" said I. "I did well to take them."

Over the signature on the first letter-it seemed to be written on parchment-were the words, "Haste! haste! haste!" This was the thicker and heavier of the two, and was addressed to Sir Maurice Berkeley, at St. Mary Overy's, Southwark, London. I turned it over and over in my hands, and peeped into it, hesitating. Twice I muttered, "All is fair in love and war!" And at last, with curiosity fully awake, and a glance behind me to make sure that the act was unobserved, I broke the seal. The document proved to be as short and pithy as it was startling. It was an order commanding Sir Maurice Berkeley forthwith in the Queen's name, and by the authority of the Council, and so on, and so on, to arrest Katherine Willoughby de Eresby, Duchess of Suffolk, and to deliver her into the custody of the Lieutenant of the Tower, "These presents to be his waranty for the detention of the said Duchess of Suffolk until her Grace's pleasure in the matter be known."

When it was too late I trembled to think what I had done. To meddle with matters of state might be more dangerous a hundred times than stealing horses, or even than ducking the Chancellor's messenger! Seeing at this moment a party of travelers approach, I crammed the letter into my pocket, and rode by them with a red face, and a tongue that stuttered so feebly that I could scarcely return their greetings. When they had gone by I pulled out the warrant again, having it in my mind to tear it up without a moment's delay-to tear it into the smallest morsels, and so get rid of a thing most dangerous. But the great red seal dangling at the foot of the parchment caught my eye, and I paused to think. It was so red, so large, so imposing, it seemed a pity to destroy it. It must surely be good for something. I folded up the warrant again, and put it away in my safest pocket. Yes, it might be good for something.

I took out the other letter. It was bound with green ribbon and sealed with extreme care, being directed simply to Mistress Clarence-there was no address. But over Gardiner's signature on the wrapper were the words, "These, on your peril, very privately."

I turned it over and over, and said the same thing about love and war, and even repeated to myself my old proverb about a sheep and a lamb. But somehow I could not do it. The letter was a woman's letter; the secret, her secret; and though my fingers itched as they hovered about the seals, my cheek tingled too. So at last, with a muttered, "What would Petronilla say?" I put it away unopened in the pocket where the warrant lay. The odds were immense that Mistress Clarence would never get it; but at least her secret should remain hers, my honor mine!

It was dark when I rode, thoroughly jaded, into St. Albans. I was splashed with mud up to the waist and wetted by a shower, and looked, I have no doubt, from the effect of my journeying on foot and horseback, as disreputable a fellow as might be. The consciousness too that I was without a penny, and the fear lest, careful as I had been to let no one outsrip me, the news of the riot at Stratford might have arrived, did not tend to give me assurance. I poked my head timidly into the great room, hoping that I might have it to myself. To my disgust it was full of people. Half-a-dozen travelers and as many townsfolk were sitting round the fire, talking briskly over their evening draught. Yet I had no choice. I was hungry, and the thing had to be done, and I swaggered in, something of the sneak, no doubt, peeping through my bravado. I remarked, as I took my seat by the fire and set to drying myself, that I was greeted by a momentary silence, and that two or three of the company began to eye me suspiciously.

There was one man, who sat on the settle in the warmest corner of the chimney, who seemed in particular to resent my damp neighborhood. His companions treated him with so much reverence, and he snubbed them so regularly, that I wondered who he was; and presently, listening to the conversation which went on round me, I had my curiosity satisfied. He was no less a personage than the Bailiff of St. Albans, and his manner befitted such a man; for it seemed to indicate that he thought himself heir to all the powers of the old Abbots under whose broad thumb his father and grandfather had groaned.

My conscience pricking me, I felt some misgiving when I saw him, after staring at me and whispering to two or three of his neighbors, beckon the landlord aside. His big round face and burly figure gave him a general likeness to bluff King Hal and he appeared to be aware of this himself, and to be inclined to ape the stout king's ways, which, I have heard my uncle say, were ever ways heavy for others' toes. For a while, however, seeing my supper come in, I forgot him. The bare-armed girl who brought it to me, and in whom my draggled condition seemed to provoke feelings of a different nature, lugged up a round table to the fire. On this she laid my meal, not scrupling to set aside some of the snug dry townsfolk. Then she set a chair for me well in the blaze, and folding her arms in her apron stood to watch me fall to. I did so with a will, and with each mouthful of beef and draught of ale, spirit and strength came back to me. The cits round me might sneer and shake their heads, and the travelers smile at my appetite. In five minutes I cared not a whit! I could give them back joke for joke, and laugh with the best of them.

Indeed, I had clean forgotten the Bailiff, when he stalked back to his place. But the moment our eyes met, I guessed there was trouble afoot. The landlord came with him and stood looking at me, sending off the wench with a flea in her ear; and I felt under his eye an uncomfortable consciousness that my purse was empty. Two or three late arrivals, to whom I suppose Master Bailiff had confided his suspicions, took their stand also in a half-circle and scanned me queerly. Altogether it struck me suddenly that I was in a tight place, and had need of my wits.

"Ahem!" said the Bailiff abruptly, taking skillful advantage of a lull in the talk. "Where from last, young man?" He spoke in a deep choky voice, and, if I was not mistaken, he winked one of his small eyes in the direction of his friends, as though to say, "Now see me pose him!"

But I only put another morsel in my mouth. For a moment indeed the temptation to reply "Towcester," seeing that such a journey over a middling road was something to brag of before the Highway Law came in, almost overcame me. But in time I bethought me of Stephen Gardiner's maxim, "Be slow to speak!" and I put another morsel in my mouth.

The Bailiff's face grew red, or rather, redder. "Come, young man, did you hear me speak?" he said pompously. "Where from last?"

"From the road, sir," I replied, turning to him as if I had not heard him before. "And a very wet road it was."

A man who sat next me chuckled, being apparently a stranger like myself. But the Bailiff puffed himself into a still more striking likeness to King Henry, and including him in his scowl shouted at me, "Sirrah! don't bandy words with me! Which way did you come along the road, I asked."

It was on the tip of my tongue to answer saucily, "The right way!" But I reflected that I might be stopped; and to be stopped might mean to be hanged at worst, and something very unpleasant at best. So I controlled myself, and answered-though the man's arrogance was provoking enough-"I have come from Stratford, and I am going to London. Now you know as much as I do."