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."

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: "'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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: "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.

[Sidenote: 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.