CHAPTER III.

MAUDLIN SWEETAPPLE.

"Marry! and so here you be at last, child!" said a half-glad, half-chiding, cracked, treble voice, as a brown withered hand unfastened the door from within. "Have you seen your father?"

"Let me come in, Maudlin, dear. Quick!" was all Ruth's response as she hurriedly slipped inside; and then, carefully closing the postern, she seized Maudlin by the elbow, and dragged her along the gravel path till they stood under a groined arch, in whose recesses two stout nail-studded oaken doors faced each other.

Pushing open the one to the right, which stood ajar and yielded at once to her touch, Ruth lifted a curtain of tapestry hanging on its inner side, and entered a spacious oak-wainscoted chamber, whose handsome but old-fashioned and well-worn furniture showed dimly in the light of the log-fire burning on the hearth.

"Yes," she said, at last answering the old woman's question. "He was down by the bridge."

"That's well," said Maudlin, heaving a sigh of relief, as she sank into a big comfortable armed chair beside the hearth, "for he seemed main put about that you tarried so late. Tho', as I said to him: 'Tis but once in our lives we're young, Master Rumbold,' I said. And have you had a good time of it, dear heart? Marry! you've been as blithe as a cricket, I'll warrant; and Master Lee, did he row thee along home in his boat, lady-bird?"

"Of course he did," replied Ruth, stooping down over the hearth, and busying herself with mending the fire with the stray bits of smouldering log.

"Of course he did," mimicked Maudlin, her little bead-black eyes twinkling merrily. "Marry, come up! Hark at that now! And left Madam Lee, poor lady, to entertain her company as she might! That's what comes o being Queen o' May. Heigho! When douce King Jamie, as his own Scots folk used to call him, sat on his gold throne," went on Maudlin, spreading her withered hands out in the brightening blaze and looking hard into it, "they made May Queen o' me. Well, well, and Master Lawrence is gone home again now--eh, child?"

"No," said Ruth, with a slight start. "Oh, yes--I mean no--I mean--that is, how should I know?"

"How should you know?" echoed Maudlin testily; "because you've got eyes and ears, I suppose. Is the child gone silly?"

"It's you're silly," retorted Ruth crossly, "asking such stupid questions;" and then she, too, set to staring moodily into the fire.

"Fretty!" inwardly commented the old nurse, as she stole a cornerwise glance at Ruth's pale face. "Fretty as any teazle burr. And 'tisn't once in a six month she's that, poor dear. Tired out; that's what 'tis. As tired out, I'll warrant, with her bit o' pleasurin' as ever our old Dobbin is with his plough work, and as ready as he is for his feed o'--What'll you like for supper, lady-bird?"

"Nothing."

"Eh, naught's a sorry supper indeed. Naught? when there's syllabub sweet as your own Colley's milk can make it; and the hot-spiced cake"--

"Ah! how you do plague! I'm not a bit hungry. It's been eat, eat, eat, all day down at the Hall," said Ruth, still half cross, and yet half apologizing for her most unusual shortcoming.

"Madam Lee is main an' hospitable, to be sure," said Maudlin, "and likes folks, rich and poor, to be havin' their fill. God bless her!"

"Ay," nodded Ruth, and a faint smile of pleasure flitted across her grave face.

"And poor old Maudlin," slyly went on the old nurse, "would a'most be finding it in her heart to be jealous of her, if she wasn't quite sure--"

"Only she is," smiled Ruth, turning and twining her arms round her friend's neck. Then she drew down the old face, as brown and shrivelled as any russet apple, and kissed it. "She knows that I love her best in all the wide, wide world."

"Ay, ay, for sure. Does she now?" contentedly laughed the old woman. "Well, well, Maudlin'll do to count with maybe. But this junketing's done thee no good, Ruth," she went on, considering the upturned face with real anxiety. "You're pale as pale, child."

"Tired just a bit," answered Ruth, again striving to evade Maudlin's gaze. "Maudlin, dear, Master Sheppard was taking in sea-coal."

"Ay. Yesterday forenoon. I know."

"Nay, to-night. Just now, as I came by."

"Just now! What nonsense is the child's tongue talking? Sea-coal again, quotha? when Mistress Sheppard was ratin' of him fast as any mill-clapper but this very morning only in my hearing, for having more sea-coal in than the 'King's Arms' can use this side o' Yule-tide, if all the king's horses, and all the king's men, and the king himself into the bargain, should come an' put up. An' main and put about is Mistress Sheppard with his craze, as she calls it. 'Just like men,' says she. 'An' no wonder,' says I, 'for sarteny there's no denyin' you may have too much o' the best o' God's gifts. And what with Sheppard's sea-coal extravagance, and what with his oysters--"

"Oysters!" exclaimed Ruth.

"Ay. Nasty slippy things. Two big boatloads o' them's landed within this se'nnight. 'Travellers,' says Master Sheppard, ''ll swallow as many as you please to set afore 'em.' 'Maybe. Worse taste theirs,' says Mistress Sheppard. 'But they won't eat the shells, I reckon; and three parts on 'em's just empty shells, she was tellin' of me; and as she says, says she, 'a groat a year paid for 'em quarterly 'd be a main sight more'n they're worth.' No, no, ladybird, you must ha' mistook. Like as not 'twas only the barge comin' to a standstill by the gate. Got stuck in the mud. The water thereabouts doesn't lie as thick as a six-pence."

"Will father be in soon, did he say, Maudlin?"

"He bid us not wait up for him; and to lock all but the postern-gate hard an' fast. He might be late, he said, havin' business to settle across at the 'King's Arms' with some dealers."

"In what?"

"Lord! how inquisitive the child is to-night. In grain, I reckon."

"From where?"

"Bless us! Ay, from Ware, for aught I know. Come, Ruth, an' you won't touch bit nor sup, let's to bed," and Maudlin rose yawning from her chair, and crossed with the aid of her stout silver-headed staff to the foot of a broad oaken staircase at the other end of the apartment. "Ho, you! Barnaby lad. A light here!" she cried in shrill tones, rapping the end of her stick vigorously on the bare polished floor. "A light here, I say! Plague seize Sleepyhead!" she grumbled on, when no response was forthcoming; "Snorin' away in his owl's roost a'ready, I'll dare swear. Barnaby! Barnaby!"

"Nay," said Ruth, pointing up the staircase, to where the moonbeams streaming in through the criss-cross mullioned panes, flooded all the length of a long gallery to almost the clearness of day, "We want no light but that;" and followed at a more sober pace by Maudlin, she tripped up the stairs towards a door opening into a circular stone chamber, whose vaulted roof was supported in its centre by a huge pillar of roughly-hewn stone, graced about its base with rusty iron rings, and remnants of chain, whilst a concourse of plethoric-looking sacks lay stacked about the floor, which was of grayish flags seamed and worn as if by the ceaseless tread of feet, especially round the pillar.

Icy chill the air struck in this place; and with no little shivering and shuddering old Maudlin hurried on through it as fast as her rheumatic twinges permitted. "'Tis a cruel shame!" she muttered, and the observation was by no means a novel one in her mouth, "that you can't get snug between the sheets without first catchin' your death o' cold; and havin' your wits all terrified out o' you with passin' through that gruesome den." Not, however, till she was well clear of the vaulted chamber, and had gained the corridor beyond, did Maudlin indulge in the latter part of her running commentary. "Marry! I come goose-flesh from top to toe when I think of all the poor souls those walls have seen die an' rot."

"Nay," said Ruth, "but that was only the Debtors' Prison, where the poor creatures were kept when they couldn't pay their rents and their tithes to the great lords and barons who used to live here. The state prison--"

"Lord forgive us!" shuddered Maudlin, "and state that poor skeleton Master Lockit says they found there was in, you may depend. Every bone rheumatics and lumbago, I doubt Ugh! Yes, I know. It lies down below water-mark, and opens into the underway that runs to Nether Hall."

"Ah! nonsense, Maudlin," laughed Ruth. "That's an old wives' tale."

"And what if it be, quotha?" bridled Maudlin. "What if it be? Aren't old wives' tales as good as young maids' tittle-tattle? I tell thee, child, as sure as we stand here there's a clear way beneath us; though it may have as many twists and crinkum crankums, I grant ye, as a half-scotched adder--all the mile and a half to Nether Hall. But him that's a mind for tryin' o't, 'll find himself when he's done, in the cellar beneath the ruined tower that's nearest the Hall, an' turnin', as one may call it, head to tail about, he'll be back again by the moat dungeon-door, down just under our feet Unless he likes to stop short by the deep black hole in the wall, which Master Lockit has it--and, as times go, he's a fair truthbider, though his tales are a'most as long as our cat's--Master Lockit has it, opens up into your father's sleeping chamber. But hark ye, Ruth, now don't you be telling young Lee about all that, mind; or he'll be for tryin' of it There's not a venturesomer harebrain than he in all the shire, let him once set his mind to a thing."

"I doubt," carelessly smiled Ruth, "he knows the fine tale well enough."

"Tale! Tale again! Well, well, and he's pleased to think it so 'tisn't Maudlin 'd have him taught better. More by token that there's death in it."

"Death!" echoed Ruth, her smiles fading.

"Choked," answered Maudlin, slowly nodding her head up and down, "with smoke-damp that'd stifle all the breath out of your body before you were six yards in."

It was Ruth's turn to shudder. "Well, what does it matter?" she said, when having closed and bolted the door of the little bedchamber they had now entered she put her arms round Maudlin's neck and kissed her, "while there's our darling little river and Lawrence's boat. By the way, Maudlin, he's christened her the 'Queen Ruth!'"

"Has he now?" delightedly smiled Maudlin. "That's main pretty of him. Though I doubt Master Rumbold'll be none so pleased. Red rags at a bull's much the same as talk about kings an' queens to him. He's all for lord protectors and cattle o' that colour. But never you fear, sweetheart; there'll be none o' them ever set up while Lawrence Lee's above ground, and he'd send all the lord protectors ever hatched flyin' before they set foot within a hundred miles o' Hoddesdon. He's like his father before him, rest his soul; and all for King Charles."

"You think so?" said Ruth brightly.

"Ay; that's my own blithe ladybird at last," cheerily cried the old woman. "Sunshine makes pretty maids' eyes sweeter than 'clouds, let me tell thee. And for the red roses instead o' white ones--hark!" went on the housekeeper, as the gate tower-clock chimed eight. "There's a long spell o' beauty sleep to be got yet. So have with thee. Say thy prayers, and then shut fast thine eyes, and I'll answer for it we'll be having all the red roses back the morn."

And then returning Ruth's embrace, Maudlin dismissed the young girl to her chamber, which lay immediately beyond.