CHAPTER VI.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER.

One thing only was quite certain, that the maltster was to be seen next morning at the usual hour among his men. As for Lawrence Lee, whatever Rumbold had confided to him remained a secret as far as the nature of it was concerned. To hide, however, from Ruth that something was amiss with him was a more difficult task, and he had failed in it.

During these last weeks, moreover, the Rye House had grown into a very prison of dulness. Rumbold, always a sombre and taciturn man, had come to be like a stone statue moving about the place, never speaking but when absolutely compelled.

The recollection of all this, and of the events of the past day, crowd bewilderingly now upon Ruth's mind, as she sits, with her chin resting upon her hand, gazing out into the night, from which the young May moon is slowly fading. Only a few stars cheer the surrounding darkness, excepting yonder where the yellow lamp-light streams through the close-drawn curtains of the guest-parlour window of the King's Arms.

[Sidenote: A cure for care.]

Many a summer evening, when Mistress Sheppard's guests tarried as late as this, Ruth could remember catching the echoes of merry laughter and snatches of songs from that window; but though the night was warm as a July one, not a sound was to be heard save the low hooting of the owls and the gurgling of the water in the moat.

She stretched her head from the window, to listen for the familiar sound of her father's heavy footfall up the wicket-path.

How late he stayed!

And Lawrence? had he gone home yet in his boat? Surely. And yet--ah! well. What was it all to her? Why vex her head about it? Why not go to sleep and forget her fancies? Fancy! were those dark cloaked figures fancy forsooth? Like some evil dreams, indeed, they haunted her mind. And that flash of cruel steel blue light? No fancy that. But what concern could it be of Ruth's? Why, a turn of her wheel would dispel it all. There is no remedy like a little bit of diligent work for troublesome thoughts, or even sad ones. How provoking that the stupid thing had not a shred of flax in it! There it stood in its corner, a beautiful wheel of ebony inlaid with ivory, her father's gift last birthday, but like a fair body without a soul, destitute of the flax. How she could have worked away by the light of the stars which were so brilliant that lamp-light would be an utter superfluity--if only the flax had been to hand!

[Sidenote: Out in the moonlight.]

Unluckily it all lay locked away, a splendid store, in the big oak linen press, atop of the keeping-room staircase; and just the least bit in the world of extra courage was indispensable for traversing those silent passages at this hour. And yet after all, a very little bit, for Ruth was no coward. The chief difficulty was to avoid disturbing Maudlin. It would be such a shame to do that. The old woman lay so comfortable--leagues away in the land of dreams. Ruth could see that, as she peeped at her through the half-open door. So soundly sleeping that she gathered courage, and stepped tiptoe across the floor, out into the corridors beyond, till she could see the sacks away at its furthermost end in the storeroom, all huddled together like hunchbacks under the dim starlight, or--like those cloaked men who had got out of the barge! and then Ruth shivered. But that was little to be wondered at, for the air of the store-room struck icy cold as she stole on--on into the corridor where the linen press stood.

Close beside it a small lattice afforded a glimpse of the river just beyond the bridge. There lay the barge! Still moored up alongside the bank; a huge black blot upon the silvery water.

And the "Queen Ruth?" Nay--as if it was likely to be there now. Why, her pretty little cat Tab had as much to do with the big elephant who lumbered by in the show yesterday, as the merry, graceful, little "Queen Ruth" could have with yonder ugly boat? And yet, and yet--ah! what a consolation it is to make sure of anything! to crush out one's absurd fancies--dead, past all coming to life again! And how temptingly easy in this case! Quite as easy anyhow, as to be standing there, dreaming and talking about it. Only just to steal down by the stairs and through the keeping-room, where the still smouldering fire cast a few dull gleams, and so out by the narrow path to the wicket. Then but a step--but softly, creep low for thy life, Ruth--in the high wall's shadow, and drag the cloak, snatched in haste from a peg, close and well about thy face and shoulders. And what if Rumbold should be returning now? But there is never a sound save the flapping of the bats' wings, that beat in her face, and bring her heart into her mouth.

[Sidenote: Ruth goes exploring.]

She was so near now to the gilded patch of light upon the black road before the inn parlour window, that had the pane been open, she must beyond all question have caught the voices of those within. But though just for one instant she paused, pressing her hand upon her beating heart to listen, not so much as an echo reached her; and she hurried on, towards the parapet of the bridge, where it wound down lower and lower to the little landing-stage--and leaned over.

Still tied to the stake lay the "Queen Ruth." The swift stream from the bridge gently swaying her bows, and her gay cowslip posies and ribbon knots fluttering in the breeze now fast springing up.

Ruth's heart sank. Past all doubt then, here was Lawrence hanging about, when he should have been back at Nether Hall an age ago. This, surely, was no night to be loitering with--with a parcel of coal-heavers; and Ruth shuddered. Pray Heaven their calling was such an honest one.

There she stood gazing with puzzled bent brows upon the barge, lying motionless and black as a funeral bier on the sluggish water, gleaming leaden gray in the sickly starlight.

[Sidenote: footsteps on the bridge.]

Slowly and sadly Ruth prepared to retrace her steps. Doubts and uncertainty would, after all, she thought, have been preferable to this sight, which did but strengthen her suspicions of she knew not what. Supposing--Hark! A shuffling of footsteps, and the sound of voices. It must be the inn party dispersing, and exchanging their good-nights. And Ruth turns to fly back to the wicket.

Too late. The tramp of feet was close upon her, heavy and measured, but it was approaching from the other side of the bridge; and Ruth dropped upon her knees, cowering down under cover of her cloak beneath the sheltering wall of the parapet, till she looked all one with a heap of dry rubbish of leaves and old straw swept up close beside her. In another instant these tramps will have passed on. For tramps doubtless they are, bound for Newmarket. Respectable travellers would of course, at this late hour, have put up for the night at Hoddesdon. What even if they should be footpads! and poor Ruth thinks longingly now of her comfortable little bedchamber. What guineas, if she owned them, would she give to find herself safe back in it! Hush! Hush! Already the span of the near bridge is resounding hollowly with their tread! Suddenly the sound ceases. The party has clearly come to a halt, and close upon her hiding-place; for though they speak in subdued and almost stealthy tones, every syllable is audible to her.

[Sidenote: The conspirators.]

"There it is," said one voice.

"Ay," muttered another. "Roight enough. Let's be gettin' for'ard."

"Wait!" peremptorily commanded a third voice in soldier-like tones. "Don't let us make any mistake."

"Oons!" impatiently grunted the second speaker; "I tell you, colonel, 'tis the spot, if I knows it, and I were born here. Yonder stands the Rye House 'telle'e, and yonder to to'ther side o' the road--"

"Road!" interrupted the military voice rather contemptuously, "you call it a road? Why 'tis scarce broad enough for a couple of broad-shouldered loons like you to walk abreast. Road forsooth!"

"King's highway, then," laughed the first speaker, whose accent was refined but disagreeably sarcastic.

A low chorus of laughter greeted this remark.

"That he'll be lying low enough upon," went on the first speaker, "before Oak Apple Day. And is yonder gabled house the King's Arms, friend?"

"Ay it be, my Lord Howard."

[Sidenote: Something in the water.]

"Forward then. Come, Walcot, if you've done mooning. What ails you, man? Staring at the water as if you saw your own double in it!"

"Do you see that?" hurriedly returned the soldier.

"See what?" and then ensued a sound of shuffling and scraping, as if the whole party was crowding to the side of the bridge.

"Why yes, for sure we does," said the native of the place, and whom Ruth recognized by his voice to be a workman in the malt-yard named Barber. "I doubt if each on us had but one eye apiece, like the measter's, we could see the moon a shoinin' on the stream."

Ruth breathed again.

"But there is no moon. 'Tis gone."

"Starlight, then."

"That is too faint to cast any such reflections," objected Colonel Walcot. "And see how it flashes: there! close up against the steps, as bright and sharp as forked lightning."

"Or a silver serpent," put in another voice.

"Or an eel," laughed Lord Howard; "come, colonel, let's push on."

"Nay, nay, bide a minute," cried another voice, which Ruth knew to belong to the foreman of the malting-yard. "The colonel's grace is right. There is summat lyin' in the stream. And 'tis nayther fire nor fish, and if I might be speakin' out my moind afore your lordship's worship, I should say as 'tis for all the world like a swoord, or one o' they skewer sort o' murdrous wepn's--"

"A rapier do you mean?" said Howard.

"Noa, noa, my lord, not just that, but a new sort o' blood-spillin' invenshun that--"

"Save us!" shiveringly ejaculated the other maltster. "What if so be that 'tis a shadder, or some evil sperrit warnin' us of the wickedness of our ways, afore it be too late."

"Coward! white-livered loon!" savagely hissed Lord Howard. "What have we to do with shadows, who fear neither man nor--"

"Oh, oh! Hush, hush, my lord," interrupted a cringing unmelodious voice, "ye speak unadvisedly."

"So do you, Master Ferguson," wrathfully cried my lord, "as you'll find when we string up your lean crow's neck for you to Master Sheppard's sign yonder, if you don't keep your cant till we ask for it. Come, quick march."

Then with stealthy, but quick and measured tramp, the whole party passed on.

Cramped in every joint, for she had scarcely dared to draw breath, much less to stir, Ruth ventured now to raise one corner of her cloak, and peer after this strange company.

[Sidenote: Strange guests for the "King's Arms."]

One by one she saw their black figures disappear from the flood of yellow light upon the road, within the deep porch of the inn.

Dizzy and bewildered with what she had just witnessed, she staggered to her feet, clinging for support as she did so to the parapet. Her eyes, as she passed her hand across them to clear the mists that blinded them, caught a dim confused gleam of the object which had attracted the attention of the party. Within barely a dozen paces of where she stood, it lay; half way between the barge and the landing stage, forking and zig-zagging just under the sluggish movement of the water.

[Sidenote: The flash of the missing weapon.]

A sharp-pointed cruel-looking blade of some description; but though Ruth, thanks to Master Lockit's instructions, could tell you a dagger from a sword, and a rapier from either, a vast deal better than some folks could, she was not able to give a name to this three-edged knife, with its short dagger-shaped hilt of wood that stuck up slantwise high and dry out of the water, among the white rush stamens. One like that she had never seen. No great marvel, however, if she had not, for the pattern was of quite recent French devising, and hardly likely so soon to have found its way into a peaceful little Hertfordshire hamlet, in the ordinary course of events; but Ruth, as she bent over the water's edge with eyes fixed on the thing, felt sure that something extraordinary was going on about and around her. Something too fearful to guess at. Never a doubt that this sword or spear, or whatever might be its hateful name, was the thing which the man Rumsey had let slip from his bundle on leaving the barge. That like one viper of its poisonous brood, the thing was but one of more of its kind, was equally clear. But come what might, thought Ruth, its own special and individual chances of fulfilling the fearful end it was fashioned for, should not be left it; and stealing down by the parapet, and along by the water's edge till she reached the spot, she knelt and stretched forward her hand, grown cold as death, but steady and straight to its purpose; and seizing the hilt of the weapon, dragged it, dripping with the diamond bright drops from the water, under her cloak. [Sidenote: Ruth strangely armed.] Then casting one keen glance round, and upwards towards the inn, she sped along the bank, never stopping till she reached the postern.