I was now soon to find that it may be easier to assume a part than to throw it off. At His Highness's invitation I was no little dismayed, having at the moment but one desire—to get me home, I mean, without delay. At thought of the feminine armor of a petticoat I was filled with a courage greater than any I had yet appeared to show. So armed, I felt I could even, without overmuch blushing, confess the sex of Sir Michael Drayton's messenger. But this greatness of heart did at once forsake me, falling away into my great boots, as it seemed, at first thought of standing up in them and their kindred garments to say, before all these soldiers, or any one of them, "I am a woman!"
Seeking, then, for some means of evasion, I laid my hand, on our being come near to the house, upon the arm of M. de Rondiniacque, thinking his frank and laughing countenance to offer sure promise of a kindly nature. On his then pausing to observe me, I did draw him a little to one side, asking if it were possible and convenient to him to make my excuse to His Highness, seeing I was much set on returning immediately home.
He clapped a hand upon my shoulder, and looking down upon me very kindly, with yet a comical glitter of mirth in his eye,—"Why, my brave boy," said he, "I would very willingly do you a service, whether for your brave deed or your pretty manners. But, if you will take an old soldier's counsel," and at this word he twirled his small and very black mustachios mighty fiercely, "you will not risk offending so great a man as William, Prince of Orange-Nassau, in so strongly rising a tide of your fortune. Mon Dieu!" he cried, laughing and looking in my face too close and keenly for my comfort, "if the lad is not shy and timorous as any girl!" And with that he thrust his arm through mine, and, "If you will ever bear that commission His Highness named," he said, "you must learn to sit at meat with soldiers without blushing. Come, let us go in and contrive that we sit together. I doubt not that and a bumper or two will give you courage!"
After which I dared say no more, but, as he would have haled me by force into the dining-hall, I begged him stay a moment while I spoke with Christopher Kidd, to whom calling as he hung forlorn and hesitating on our rear, I begged him to ride out and pick up as many as might be of our straggling troop, and to send them one and all back to Drayton with news that all was well. Some signs of mirth appearing upon Christopher's face, which in that predicament of mine I found very foolish and inconvenient, I continued in harder tones and with words of command in place of forms of request: "Though you are but a soldier of a day, Kidd, I believe you know very well under whose command Sir Michael Drayton's small body of horse left home. Find of them such as you may within the space of two hours, and see that they carry out my orders. At the end of that time you will report here to the officer of the guard, and await my further pleasure to escort me on my return. I dine with His Highness."
Though little used to command, I was not unaccustomed to be obeyed, and Christopher, closing his mouth on his foolish grin with a jerk, saluted and marched off to the orchard and his horse with promptitude worthy of a veteran.
"Well spoken, little soldier!" cried M. de Rondiniacque. "These raw levies are the devil, and thrive on a diet of brimstone. 'T is true they need curses for the most part, but, mort de ma vie! we have not all such eyes as you to flash lightning on our recruits."
"He did begin his drill no earlier than this morning," said I, with assumption of much carelessness; for the anger that had, I believe, stayed Kidd from calling me madam, had left me so trembling that I feared M. de Rondiniacque holding me by the arm should perceive it. He but said, however, I should make an officer one day, whatever became of Kidd, and hurried me into the dining-hall. As we entered, the Prince was about taking his seat, and in the slight bustle of the rest following his example, M. de Rondiniacque and I slipped into two vacant seats at the lower end of the table.
On His Highness's right was seated "Captain Jennings," on his left Count Schomberg. Captain Royston also and Mr. Bentinck were at that end of the table, while I found myself, to my great discomfort, surrounded by junior officers of various nations, and, for the most part, younger even than my friend, M. de Rondiniacque. With at first great intent of courtesy, they hurried me from one embarrassment to another. Now they would have me drink deep; then, by way, I do suppose, of enlivening my spirits, they plied me with polyglottic histories of amorous adventure, growing by steady degrees ever less pleasing; till at length, finding me grow shorter in reply and shrinking closer, as it were, into my shell, they abandoned the attempt to include me in their talk, and chattered among themselves as I wish, rather than believe, was not their custom. Much, I thank Heaven, from the babel of the many tongues, I missed; yet did I perforce hear more than enough.
After sitting no great while at meat, His Highness, to my great satisfaction, retired, requesting the attendance of "Captain Jennings" alone, and making Captain Royston, as their host, occupy at the head of the table the seat he was leaving.
More than once before the Prince's withdrawing, I had found Ned's eyes fixed upon me, with the gaze of one that in vain pursues a memory intangible. Now, although it had mightily pleased me to bewilder the man in baffling his pursuit had we been alone together, I yet, in that company I was in, found his enquiring regard not a little disconcerting; and, soon perceiving that his changed position at the table increased the frequency of the attack, I made shift to summon sufficient courage to ask his permission, on some plea of fatigue and indisposition, to retire. Which request he very courteously granted, begging, however, that I would not leave Royston before he should find time and opportunity to speak with me.
And so I found my way to the one chamber in the house that I knew; madam's withdrawing-room, to wit, which I had twice entered when Ned had taken me, a little maid, to see his mother; a large room, whose casement, broad, low, and heavily mullioned, looked out with a very noble aspect across copse and meadow, where the land fell away to the southward beyond the stream whose rocky channel had been one of the defences of the house in former days. And, as I stood idly gazing from the window, and drumming upon the panes with idle fingers, and wondering when Farmer Kidd would return, I remembered how in the old days Ned had told me of some wondrous means of escape that there was from that old house, which he would one day, if I should grow wise enough, reveal to me. And I wished that I had learned it then, that I might use it now, and so be quit at once of Prince, breeches, and a false position.
The landscape fading into the early darkness of late autumn, I stretched myself, half sitting and half lying, on the settle near the fire that burned fitfully on the great hearth of the chamber; and here soon forgot the passing of time in a doze induced, as I suppose, by the warmth of the fire, and the fatigue of my ride and the subsequent excitements. From this slumber I was aroused, how long after my falling into it I know not, by the entrance of a trooper, doing duty as servant, and bearing two heavy and branched silver candlesticks, filled with lighted candles. I was yet rubbing my eyes to clear my head of sleep and dreams, and striving to sit upright, when I caught my right spur on my left boot, and straightway remembered who I was, and how little like it I appeared. And then, close on the heels of the soldier with the candles, comes to me M. de Rondiniacque.
"Aha, my toy soldier!" he cried, as his eye lighted on me, "so 't is here you have been hiding. And sleeping, I see. Well, you may sleep on, if you will, for His Highness bids me bring you his most urgent request that you will here stay the night, in order to accompany him in the morning on his intended visit to your kinsman, Sir Michael—something——"
"Sir Michael Drayton," I replied. "I do suppose, sir," I went on, "that the Prince's urgent request differs little from a command?"
"Faith, you suppose well, young gentleman," said M. de Rondiniacque. "And therefore I made bold to send your man, when he returned from fulfilling your order, back to the place you named. Captain Royston has already much ado to feed and bed us all."
"And did Kidd obey your orders against mine?" I asked, rather that, saying something, I might cover my dismay than in any anxiety of discipline.
"Having seen us together, I think he made little distinction, my little bashaw," said M. de Rondiniacque, laughing. "I threatened him, moreover, with your displeasure, if he delayed. And now I must to His Highness."
And with that he left me, thinking very sadly I had enough of being a man. Had there been a woman in the house, I had gone to her, and told her my story. But to none of all these men did I dare to breathe my true name and state; unless, indeed, it had been to Captain Royston. And I murmured over to myself that title, which did ring so strange, and yet so proudly, in my ear. It went stiffly, too, upon the tongue that was once used to say: "Hither, Ned; not so, Ned; nay, Ned; but I will have it so." Well, Ned, I thought, was ever tender with me, and I might, indeed, at a pinch, make shift to tell him my name and troubles; but—and then in my mind there lifted up his head a little devil of mischief, and I vowed I would not so tell him till I should be enforced; but, having taken a vagary to be a man, I would hold fast to my purpose, that I might from behind this mask see more of the man and to what he was grown from the boy that had been my playmate and childhood's lover. I was fain not a little, moreover, certainly, to discover with what complexion of memory he retained the thought of little Philippa Drayton. And I thought it was mightily in favor of my plan that, although on that great night of his escape from Kirke's men, we had spoken together and our hands had met, yet since I was a little maid he had never looked upon my countenance.
At last I heard his step in the gallery without, and, for all its weight and its jingle of sabre and spur, I had known that footfall among many, even had I not known him in the house.
Captain Royston came into the chamber, followed by him that had but now fetched candles, but bearing this time an armful of wood and a blazing pine-knot. To draw my old friend's gaze, I heaved a great sigh, and gazed sadly in the fire, and knew, though I scarce saw, his eyes to turn on me. He crossed the room to the further corner, where I could well mark him without any show of particular regard, and threw wide a small door disclosing the foot of a narrow and winding stair.
"Go up," said he to the soldier, "to the room above; kindle a good fire upon the hearth; light the candles, and when the fire is well burning, return hither and stand sentry over this door till His Highness come."
And as the man ascended the stair, Captain Royston closed the door behind him, and turned to me, who kept my gaze fast on the fire.
"'T was a heavy sigh you heaved as I entered, young friend," he said, in a most gentle voice.
"Yes, faith," I answered, "it was heavy." And again I sighed.
He then asked me what it was did make me sad, and I replied I did not use to be from home, and was mighty lonesome.
"Nay, lad," he cried cheerily, laying a hand of comfort on my shoulder, "'t is but till the morrow. You have to-day borne yourself like a man; be not now homesick like a very maid. There is company enough. Why didst leave the table?"
"I was near falling with fatigue, sir," I answered; "and—and—and, in truth, I liked not the talk at the table where I sat."
"Poor lad!" said he, gently patting the shoulder where his hand did lie, and thereafter drawing the hand away; "poor lad! Would you grow to be a man? Harden your ears—your ears, mark me, not your heart." And I said nothing to him, but to myself that I feared both would need ............