CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WITCH'S WARNING.

"One minute!" I said. "That is the place."

Master Bertie turned in his saddle, and looked at it. The light was fading into the early dusk of a November evening, but the main features of four cross streets, the angle between two of them filled by the tall belfry of a church, were still to be made out. The east wind had driven loiterers indoors, and there was scarcely any one abroad to notice us. I pointed to a dead wall ten paces down one street. "Opposite that they stopped," I said. "There was a pile of boards leaning against it then."

"You have had many a worse bedchamber since, lad," he said, smiling.

"Many," I answered. And then by a common impulse we shook up the horses, and trotting gently on were soon clear of London and making for Islington. Passing through the latter we began to breast the steep slope which leads to Highgate, and coming, when we had reached the summit, plump upon the lights of the village, pulled up in front of a building which loomed darkly across the road.

"This is the Gatehouse Tavern," Master Bertie said in a low voice. "We shall soon know whether we have come on a fool's errand--or worse!"

We rode under the archway into a great courtyard, from which the road issued again on the other side through another gate. In one corner two men were littering down a line of packhorses by the light of the lanterns, which brought their tanned and rugged faces into relief. In another, where the light poured ruddily from an open doorway, an ostler was serving out fodder, and doing so, if we might judge from the travelers' remonstrances, with a niggardly hand. From the windows of the house a dozen rays of light shot athwart the darkness, and disclosed as many pigs wallowing asleep in the middle of the yard. In all we saw a coarse comfort and welcome. Master Bertie led the way across the yard, and accosted the ostler. "Can we have stalls and beds?" he asked.

The man stayed his chaffering, and looked up at us. "Every man to his business," he replied gruffly. "Stalls, yes; but of beds I know nothing. For women's work go to the women."

"Right!" said I, "so we will. With better luck than you would go, I expect, my man!"

Bursting into a hoarse laugh at this--he was lame and one-eyed and not very well-favored--he led us into a long, many-stalled stable, feebly lit by lanterns which here and there glimmered against the walls. "Suit yourselves," he said; "first come is first served here."

He seemed an ill-conditioned fellow, but the businesslike way in which we went about our work, watering, feeding, and littering down in old campaigners' fashion, drew from him a grunt of commendation. "Have you come from far, masters?" he asked.

"No, from London," I answered curtly. "We come as linen-drapers from Westcheap, if you want to know."

"Ay, I see that," he said chuckling. "Never were atop of a horse before nor handled anything but a clothyard; oh, no!"

"We want a merchant reputed to sell French lace," I continued, looking hard at him. "Do you happen to know if there is a dealer here with any?"

He nodded rather to himself than to me, as if he had expected the question. Then in the same tone, but with a quick glance of intelligence, he answered, "I will show you into the house presently, and you can see for yourselves. A stable is no place for French lace." He pointed with a wink over his shoulder toward a stall in which a man, apparently drunk, lay snoring. "That is a fine toy!" he ran on carelessly, as I removed my dagger from the holster and concealed it under my cloak--"a fine plaything--for a linen draper!"

"Peace, peace, man! and show us in," said Master Bertie impatiently.

With a shrug of his shoulders the man obeyed. Crossing the courtyard behind him, we entered the great kitchen, which, full of light and warmth and noise, presented just such a scene of comfort and bustle, of loud talking, red-faced guests, and hurrying bare-armed serving-maids, as I remembered lighting upon at St. Albans three years back. But I had changed much since then, and seen much. The bailiff himself would hardly have recognized his old antagonist in the tall, heavily cloaked stranger, whose assured air, acquired amid wild surroundings in a foreign land, gave him a look of age to which I could not fairly lay claim. Master Bertie had assigned the lead to me as being in less danger of recognition, and I followed the ostler toward the hearth without hesitation. "Master Jenkin!" the man cried, with the same rough bluntness he had shown without, "here are two travelers want the lace-seller who was here to-day. Has he gone?"

"Who gone?" retorted the host as loudly.

"The lace merchant who came this morning."

"No; he is in No. 32," returned the landlord. "Will you sup first, gentlemen?"

We declined, and followed the ostler, who made no secret of our destination, telling those in our road to make way, as the gentlemen were for No. 32. One of the crowd, however, who seemed to be crossing from the lower end of the room, failed apparently to understand, and, interposing between us and our guide, brought me perforce to a halt.

"By your leave, good woman!" I said, and turned to pass round her.

But she foiled me with unexpected nimbleness, and I could not push her aside, she was so very old. Her gums were toothless and her forehead was lined and wrinkled. About her eyes, which under hideous red lids still shone with an evil gleam--a kind of reflection of a wicked past--a thousand crows' feet had gathered. A few wisps of gray hair struggled from under the handkerchief which covered her head. She was humpbacked, and stooped over a stick, and whether she saw or not my movement of repugnance, her voice was harsh when she spoke.

"Young gentleman," she croaked, "let me tell your fortune by the stars. A fortune for a groat, young gentleman!" she continued, peering up into my face and frustrating my attempts to pass.

"Here is a groat," I answered peevishly, "and for the fortune, I will hear it another day. So let us by!"

But she would not. My companion, seeing that the attention of the room was being drawn to us, tried to pull me by her. But I could not use force, and short of force there was no remedy. The ostler, indeed, would have interfered on our behalf, and returned to bid her, with a civility he had not bestowed on us, "give us passage." But she swiftly turned her eyes on him in a sinister fashion, and he retreated with an oath and a paling face, while those nearest to us--and half a dozen had crowded round--drew back, and crossed themselves in haste almost ludicrous.

"Let me see your face, young gentleman," she persisted, with a hollow cough. "My eyes are not so clear as they were, or it is not your cloak and your flap-hat that would blind me."

Thinking it best to get rid of her, even at a slight risk--and the chance that among the travelers present there would be one able to recognize me was small indeed--I uncovered. She shot a piercing glance at my face, and looking down on the floor, traced hurriedly a figure with her stick. She studied the phantom lines a moment, and then looked up.

"Listen!" she said solemnly, and waving her stick round me, she quavered out in tones which filled me with a strange tremor:

"The man goes east, and the wind blows west, Wood to the head, and steel to the breast! The man goes west, and the wind blows east, The neck twice doomed the gallows shall feast!

"Beware!" she went on more loudly, and harshly, tapping with her stick on the floor, and snaking her palsied head at me. "Beware, unlucky shoot of a crooked branch! Go no farther with it! Go back! The sword may miss or may not fall, but the cord is sure!"

If Master Bertie had not held my arm tightly, I should have recoiled, as most of those within hearing had already done. The strange allusions to my past, which I had no difficulty in detecting, and the witch's knowledge of the risks of our present enterprise, were enough to startle and shake the most constant mind; and in the midst of enterprises secret and dangerous, few minds are so firm or so reckless as to disdain omens. That she was one of those unhappy beings who buy dark secrets at the expense of their souls, seemed certain; and had I been alone, I should have, I am not ashamed to say it, given back.

But I was lucky in having for my companion a man of rare mind, and besides of so single a religious belief that to the end of his life he always refused to put faith in a thing of the existence of which I have no doubt myself--I mean witchcraft.

He showed at this moment the courage of his opinions. "Peace, peace, woman!" he said compassionately. "We shall live while God wills it, and die when he wills it. And neither live longer nor die earlier! So let us by."

"Would you perish?" she quavered.

"Ay! If so God wills," he answered undaunted.

At that she seemed to shake all over, and hobbled aside, muttering, "Then go on! Go on! God wills it!"

Master Bertie gave me no time for hesitation, but, holding my arm, urged me on to where the ostler stood awaiting the event with a face of much discomposure. He opened the door for us, however, and led the way up a narrow and not too clean staircase. On the landing at the head of this he paused, and raised his lantern so as to cast the light on our faces. "She has overlooked me, the old witch!" he said viciously; "I wish I had never meddled in this business."

"Man!" Master Bertie replied sternly; "do you fear that weak old woman?"

"No; but I fear her master," retorted the ostler, "and that is the devil!"

"Then I do not," Master Bertie answered bravely. "For my Master is as good a match for him as I am for that old woman. When he wills it, man, you will die, and not before. So pluck up spirit."

Master Bertie did not look at me, though I needed his encouragement as much as the ostler, having had better proofs of the woman's strange knowledge. But, seeing that his exhortation had emboldened this ignorant man, I was ashamed to seem to hesitate. When the ostler knocked at the door--not of 32, but of 15--and it presently opened, I went in without more ado.

The room was a bare inn-chamber. A pallet without coverings lay in one corner. In the middle were a couple of stools, and on one of them a taper.

The person who had opened to us stood eying us attentively; a bluff, weather-beaten man with a thick beard and the air of a sailor. "Well," he said, "what now?"

"These gentlemen want to buy some lace," the ostler explained.

"What lace do they want?" was the retort.

"French lace," I answered.

"You have come to the right shop, then," the man answered briskly. Nodding to our conductor to depart, he carefully let him out. Then, barring the door behind him, he as rapidly strode to the pallet and twitched it aside, disclosing a trap door. He lifted this, and we saw a narrow shaft descending into darkness. He brought the taper and held it so as to throw a faint light into the opening. There was no ladder, but blocks of wood nailed alternately against two of the sides, at intervals of a couple of feet or so, made the descent pretty easy for an active man. "The door is on this side," he said, pointing out the one. "Knock loudly once and softly twice. The word is the same."

We nodded and while he held the taper above, we descended, one by one, without much difficulty, though I admit that half-way down the old woman's words "Go on and perish" came back disquietingly to my mind. However, my foot struck the bottom before I had time to digest them, and a streak of light which seemed to issue from under a door forced my thoughts the next moment into a new channel. Whispering to Master Bertie to pause a minute, for there was only room for one of us to stand at the bottom of the shaft, I knocked in the fashion prescribed.

The sound of loud voices, which I had already detected, ceased on a sudden, and I heard a shuffling on the other side of the boards. This was followed by silence, and then the door was flung open, and, blinded for the moment by a blaze of light, I walked mechanically forward into a room. I made out as I advanced a group of men standing round a rude table, their figures thrown into dark relief by flares stuck in sconces on the walls behind them. Some had weapons in their hands and others had partly risen from their seats and stood in postures of surprise. "What do you seek?" cried a threatening voice from among them.

"Lace," I answered.

"What lace?"

"French lace."

"Then you are welcome--heartily welcome!" was the answer given in a tone of relief. "But who comes with you?"

"Master Richard Bertie, of Lincolnshire," I answered promptly; and at that moment he emerged from the shaft.

A still more hearty murmur of welcome hailed his name and appearance, and we were borne forward to the table amid a chorus of voices, the greeting given to Master Bertie being that of men who joyfully hail unlooked-for help. The room, from its vaulted ceiling and stone floor, and the trams of casks which lay here and there or near the table serving for seats, appeared to be a cellar. Its dark, gloomy recesses, the flaring lights, and the weapons on the table, seemed meet and fitting surroundings for the anxious faces which were gathered about the board; for there was a something in the air which was not so much secrecy as a thing more unpleasant--suspicion and mistrust. Almost at the moment of our entrance it showed itself. One of the men, before the door had well closed behind us, went toward it, as if to go out. The leader--he who had questioned me--called sharply to him, bidding him come back. And he came back, but reluctantly, as it seemed to me.

I barely noticed this, for Master Bertie, who was known personally to many and by name to all, was introducing me to two who were apparently the leaders: Sir Thomas Penruddocke, a fair man as tall as myself, loose-limbed and untidily dressed, with a reckless eye and a loud tongue; and Master Walter Kingston, a younger brother, I was told, of that Sir Anthony Kingston who had suffered death the year before for conspiracy against the queen--the same in which Lord Devon had showed the white feather. Kingston was a young man of moderate height and slender; of a brown complexion, and delicate, almost womanish beauty, his sleepy dark eyes and dainty mustache suggesting a temper rather amiable than firm. But the spirit of revenge had entered into him, and I soon learned that not even Penruddocke, a Cornish knight of longer lineage than purse, was so vehement a plotter or so devoted to the cause. Looking at the others my heart sank; it needed no greater experience than mine to discern that, except three or four whom I identified as stout professors of religion, they were men rather of desperate fortunes than good estate. I learned on the instant that conspiracy makes strange bedfellows, and that it is impossible to do dirty work even with the purest intentions--in good company! Master Bertie's face indicated to one who knew him as well as I did something of the same feeling; and could the clock have been put back awhile, and we placed with free hands and uncommitted outside the Gatehouse, I think we should with one accord have turned our backs on it, and given up an attempt which in this company could scarcely fare any way but