CHAPTER XXXI.

RUMSEY MEETS HIS MATCH.

"Mistress, your servant," said the king, his voice dropping to a gentle gravity, as the door opened, and disclosed the gray-clad figure of Ruth Rumbold. "What can we do for you?" he added, striving to conceal the curiosity he could not but feel at sight of the pale face, and the sad wearied look of the beautiful downcast eyes. "Or do you perhaps bring me the reckoning?" he went on, as, encouraged by his kindly tones, she tendered him a large folded paper which she carried in her hand, making a profound curtsey as she did so, at the same time lifting her eyes to his friendly gaze, so that he could read in them of the heart too full for words.

"Ods-fish, it must be something of a heavy one!" he added laughingly, as he turned the paper about, examining its seal; "but it bears no superscription, Mistress--Mistress--are you not Mistress Ruth Rumbold?" She curtseyed again, "It bears no superscription?" he reiterated, and hesitating to break open the seal.

"It is meant for your--your--"

"Worship," prompted Mistress Sheppard.

"Your worship's reading," said Ruth.

Then without more ado, Charles opened the paper.

"Why, what have we here?" he said, glancing over its contents with awakened curiosity. "'Tis made out in two hands! '_I, Thomas_'--who is it? '_Thomas Good_'--I' faith! 'tis less like handwriting, than as if a spider had dipped his legs in ink, and then danced a coranto on this fair white paper meadow. Pray had the gentleman his wits when he indited this?"

"Indeed, indeed," cried Ruth, "he had, but not his strength--your worship. He was dying."

"Oh, I crave your pardon," said the king, growing grave again, and dropping his gaze from Ruth's troubled face, to the paper; "'_being now at the point of death_.' Ay, ay, I see now, I should have read further, '_by the hand of the man Richard_'--what's that noise?" he went on, breaking off in his deciphering endeavours, as a distant chorus of yells and shouts and hideous cat-calls suddenly broke upon the drowsy afternoon silence. "Your neighbourhood," he added with an amused smile, as he turned to continue his task, "would appear to be less peaceful than it looks. '_The man Richard_--'"

[Sidenote: The strange guest speaks.]

"Maybe 'tis your friend come at last to keep his appointment," said the stranger, whose eyes had for many minutes past been fixed on Charles. "Better late than never, you know," he added, putting his pipe back between his lips, which were curled into an ugly leer; and thrusting both hands into the pockets of his small clothes, he settled himself to watch the approach of a dense motley rabble enveloped in a cloud of dust, which suddenly broke with a renewed outburst of uproar, over the low wood garden-fence, trampling it under foot, till it lay scattered in all directions. On, on, tramp, tramp, surging to the very windows it came, amidst shrieks and whoops, and cries of "Shame! shame! give him a yard o' rope, fair play! God save the king!--The gallows tree's too good for him!"--Tramp, tramp, fell the heavy tread of hobnailed shoes, until the forest of pitchforks, cudgels, rusty firearms, spades, spuds, rakes, and every conceivable weapon and tool brandished aloft by the strange crew fell apart, and disclosed the cord-bound figure of Lawrence Lee.

[Sidenote: The prisoner.]

"What!" cried the king, starting in amazement. "Master Lee?"

"And a right magnificent progress he appears to have made," said the stranger, with an insolent laugh, as he carefully laid aside his pipe and rose from his seat. "Ho! come, guards," he shouted through the open window; "bring in your prisoner;" and hustled forward along the broad passage, despite the proddings and fisticuffs dealt right and left by his guards, against whom Mistress Sheppard seconded her indignant protests, by the vigorous aid of her own hands and finger nails, Lee, deprived of all power of helping himself, stumbled head first into the presence of the king.

"What does this mean?" cried Charles, as Lee, maintaining a stout resistance, succeeded for a moment in elbowing off the worst of the press, and hurrying forward, dropped, breathless and spent, upon one knee at the king's feet.

"Your Majesty," he began.

"The king?!!" broke in one universal shout of amazement from all present, excepting from the lips of Mistress Sheppard and Ruth Rumbold, and then an awe-stricken silence fell.

"Tell me--" began the king.

"I can tell your Majesty but this," said Lee, his voice falling clear and resonant through the utter stillness, "that I have been arrested by the order of the man who stands there, Richard Rumsey; but on what charge, I wait for him to say."

"On the charge," said Rumsey, advancing from the shadows, like some savage beast from its lair, with an evil twitching of his lips, and a serpent-like glitter in his cold eyes, which, however, carefully eluded the gaze of all present--"the charge of the murder of Sheriff Goodenough."

"What?!" shouted Lee, bounding to his feet.

"Committed," calmly continued Rumsey, still looking into space, "in the Warder's Room of Master Rumbold's house yonder yesterday morning."

[Sidenote: The witness.]

"Nay, that is false," broke in Ruth, "for it wanted almost ten minutes of midnight. The clock had not struck."

"Girl!" cried Rumsey starting, and turning upon her a face grown ghastly pale; but immediately collecting himself he added, addressing the king, with a baleful smile upon his lips, "Let it be so, your M----. The young woman may be right. She is in Master Lee's confidence I doubt not; and he has whispered the gentle secret of his exploit to her. Ten minutes to midnight it might have been."

"Villain!" furiously burst forth Lee.

"And since he has imparted in sweet confidence to this--in sooth I think she just now said her name was--"

[Sidenote: The accuser.]

"Ruth Rumbold, yes," cried the girl in a loud ringing voice. "And 'tis you--you, Richard Rumsey, are the murderer of Sheriff Goodenough!"

"You are certainly mighty wise, little mistress," he rejoined with a spasmodic twitch of his pallid lips. "Your Majesty," he went on, turning jauntily to the king, and with a careless wave of his hand towards Lee, "can see how the land lies betwixt these two. And this brave young bloodsucker is indeed to be envied so fair a special pleader. But it won't do, my dear," he added, addressing Ruth in jeering tones. "'Tis too grave a matter."

"Ay, truly," said the bewildered Charles, again glancing over the paper in his hands. "Grave indeed!"

"Scoundrel! double-dyed villain!" exclaimed Lee, writhing in his cords, and glaring at Rumsey. "Is it not enough that already your soul is black with its guilt, but you must accuse another of your crime?"

"Words break no bones," coolly laughed Rumsey. "If ever now," he went on, pointing at Lee's bound hands, whose every vein stood out to bursting in his struggles to get free, "these inconvenient little knots should be loosed, you shall certainly be set to rant it at Drury Lane playhouse. You'd make Manager Betterton's fortune in a week. In the meantime," he added, turning to the king, "your Majesty sees before you the slayer of Thomas Goodenough."

[Sidenote: For the defence.]

"Ay, ay; he speaks truth at last!" cried Mistress Sheppard, and dashing forward, and squaring up to Rumsey, she shook her clenched fist in his face.

"Woman!" he snarled, retreating a step, and his ashen lips quivering apart, like a half-cowed hyena's.

"Oh! woman me as much as you please," she stormed on. "That don't frighten me much, I reckon. Yes, yes, woman I am, and Ruth here has told me all about it; and how the others being gone away--"

"Others?" wonderingly interrupted the king. "Gone away?"

"Ay, for sure. The other conspirators, your Majesty--being gone down into the vaults with Master Rumbold, to see the way they should escape by, if--when--" She hesitated a moment.

"Go on, my good woman. I understand," said the king, "when their purpose should be accomplished."

"And they left Master Goodenough, who had fallen asleep in the window, alone with this Rumsey here; and Master Goodenough, who was not for--for your Majesty being murdered, but only for being made away with like, across the water--being presently wakened up, picked a quarrel with this fellow--that is, this fellow, who was all for hacking down your Majesty and his grace of York yonder in the lane, like any butcher's oxen, picked it with him, and--Come, Ruth, child;" and seizing Ruth by the arm, Mistress Sheppard dragged her forward. "Those were his words. Tell the king how those were his words."

"Lies!" hissed Rumsey through his livid lips. "Let her bring her witnesses. Just a string of lies!"

"Those are in thy foul mouth," retorted Mistress Sheppard. "Not in this gentle child's, who found courage, Heaven helping her, for the king's sake, to make herself certain of all your evil minds were hatchin'; and then spared not what was best and dearest to her, so only that the king should be apprised of your villainy. Oh, I trow they'll be well mated man an' wife," murmured on Mistress Sheppard, gazing with proud tears in her eager eyes, from Ruth to Lawrence Lee, "when please old Time's good leisure, he shall make her a trifle older."

[Sidenote: A parenthesis.]

"Keep to the point, dear Mistress Sheppard," said Lawrence, flushing a little.

"An' what am I doin', if I aren't keepin' to't?" demanded she. "Don't I say that she spared not even you, Lawrence Lee, to the perilsome journey to Newmarket? and didn't you right willingly mind her biddin'? Oh, I'll warrant me, little Ruth has told me all; and who but me was't, that girthed Stars and Garters, not waitin' to untie--savin' your Majesty's sacred presence--to untie my nightcap, and bid ye God-speed, and sent ye both gallopin' off together?"

"This is a strange tale," said the king, as Mistress Sheppard paused for lack of breath.

[Sidenote: The evidence.]

"Ay, 'tis indeed," she went on, "and Mistress Ruth has eyes an' ears, an' uses 'em to better purpose than some folks I know"--and she threw a significant glance at her bewildered better half--"as can only stand gaffin' and gawmin' at a body. An' she used 'em to bestest purpose of all, that moment when she hided, poor lamb, inside o' yonder panel that looks into the Warder's Room, an' saw you, Richard Rumsey, commit your foul deed. And so for your witness, if you want one, why here she stands."

"Unbind this young man's arms," said the king.

Rumsey started forward with looks of well-feigned concern. "Is your Majesty mad?" he said protestingly. "'Tis indeed too venturesome--too foolhardy, if I may say so. This fellow--taken red-handed--"

"We are surety for his not running away," interrupted the king with a faint smile.

"Shall she tell more?" went on Mistress Sheppard, looking on with triumphant satisfaction, while the king's commands were being obeyed. "Do you want to know how like the Lord's own blessed Bible Samaritan this child tended the poor bleeding sinful soul, an' strove to save his poor body; but Heaven would not have it so, an' called him to his account--"

"Does your Majesty," loftily broke in Rumsey, "accept the testimony of this ranting virago, and this puling girl, or the word of a soldier?"

"He can take it, or leave it," cried Mistress Sheppard, throwing all her court manners to the winds, "like pigs leave pearls for offal. The witness of living truth," she went on in slower and solemn tones, "and of loyal hearts, is no thing to be despised. But the testimony of the dead is mightier than the angel's last trumpet; and that looks his Majesty in the face;" and Mistress Sheppard pointed to the paper in the king's hands.

[Sidenote: The tables turned.]

"It is enough," said Charles, gazing with emotion on the poor faint signature of the dying man's hand, and the somewhat tremulous but clerkly little characters beneath it. "Richard Goodenough being dead, yet speaketh. Arrest that traitor!" and he pointed to Rumsey.

Like a wild beast at bay, the guilty wretch glared round him. All chance of escape was worse than hopeless; and the guard which now left Lawrence Lee a free man, and hastened to surround their new prisoner, had apparently an easy task in securing him. Ere, however, they could touch him, he plunged his hand into his breast, and with a heavy, but lightning-quick sideways lurch, eluded the grasp of his captors, and breaking into a low rageful howl stumbled forward within a couple of paces of the king. "So then!" he cried with an imprecation, snatching his hidden hand from the bosom of his doublet.

[Sidenote: Rumsey's last attempt.]

Time only to see that it clutches some gleaming weapon which he turns with a savage thrust upon the king's breast,--time only for a moment of dumb stricken horror instantly broken by shrieks and cries mingling with the deafening report of a pistol, whose smoke as it clears in thin bluish vapour reveals Rumsey prostrate at the king's feet beneath the grip of Lawrence Lee, the fingers of the would-be regicide's right hand still grasping the pistol, whose muzzle points straight upward to the broad beam overhead, shattered and charred, and riddled with its discharged contents!