CHAPTER VII.

MISTRESS SHEPPARD DOES NOT CARE FOR HER GUESTS.

Mistress Sheppard was almost as perfect a specimen of a landlady, as her establishment was a model of an inn; for who has not heard of that famous King's Arms, within whose snug shelter Master Isaak Walton loved to rest and sup, with a friendly gossip after his day's angling in the waters of the "Silver Lea," which almost washed the ancient hostelry's walls?

[Sidenote: The landlady of the inn.]

Decidedly, even to her very little tempers, Mistress Sheppard was a model of her class. When the world wagged to her liking, her plump peony cheeks so dimpled over with smiling good-humour, and her voice, albeit always a trifle shrill, was so kindly, that you experienced some difficulty in bringing yourself to believe, what nevertheless was true, that the face could look thunderously black, and the voice set your teeth on edge with its vinegar sharpness.

In justice, however, it ought to be added that sunshine prevailed in Mistress Sheppard's nature, and the storms threatened only when she had what she called her "reasons" for them. If Sheppard called them "prejudices, unaccountable prejudices," he only did so when she was safe out of earshot.

To his great vexation and discomfiture, the clouds hang very heavy on his wife's brow to-night. It is clear she does not like these guests who have sought the inn's hospitality; and when the party arriving by road, passes through into the parlour, she sits contemplating its door, which is close shut by the one who last enters, in grim meditative silence.

"I don't know whose looks I care for least among 'em," she muttered, as at last she slowly turned to fill the tankards of ale they had ordered. "Eyes on a more hang-dog crew I never set. With the brims o' their hats as hollow as cabbage leaves, as if they was ashamed o' their own ugly faces; as well they may be, and downright afeard to be seein' what mine was like. Why, I give you my word, there wasn't one o' the lot looked my way, to give me so much as a civil good e'en, as they passed. That's manners for you!"

"Hush!" whispered Sheppard, imploringly, and casting nervous glances towards the guest-parlour, as Mistress Sheppard's tones ran up the gamut, till they ended in a shrill treble. "Hush! There's a dear woman. Walls have ears."

"And so much the better if they have; for then they'll be knowin' a piece o' my mind."

"Ah, hush! hush! If the gentlemen should overhear--"

"Gentlemen, quotha! gentlemen!--"

"Ay; there's a live lord among 'em."

"Live lord is there! Then, beshrew me, if it's at court he learnt his manners. Our dame-school brats know 'em better. Why his sacred majesty--"

"Ah, hush! hush!" agonizedly entreated Sheppard.

[Sidenote: Lord Howard has his character.]

"What should I hush for? His own sacred majesty, I say, always bids me a 'God save you, Mistress Sheppard!' from his coach-door when his coach pulls up here to change horses; and once--well I remember it--his own royal fingers chucked me under the chin. No, I don't say you was by and saw him do't; but he did. Well, well, what's your fine lord's name? Bless the man; can't you speak out? mumblin' as if you hadn't got a tooth in your head! Howard o' what?"

"Escrick. Lord Howard of Escrick."

"M'ph!" murmured Mistress Sheppard, cogitatively tapping her plump finger tips on the table. "'Tis a good name, and a proud, is Howard. But your whitest flock's got its black sheep, they say. And now I think on't, 'twas but t'other day--though I don't at this minute recollect the hows and the wheres--somebody that was in here, was tellin' of me that there wasn't a daring profligate among all the quality like this same Howard of Escrick, an' not a shred o' principle or honesty in him."

"An' what's all that to us?" said Sheppard, with a feeble attempt at bravado, as he marshalled the tankards on his tray. "The best thing you can do, is to give me the bottle o' Canary he's ordered; an' be quick about it. There's a good woman. Anyhow you've no call to complain of his honesty; for hasn't he paid his reckonin' a'ready? See if he hasn't." And Sheppard triumphantly threw down a gold piece. "Now what do you take him for?"

"A knave!" said Mistress Sheppard, pocketing the gold, however, "or else a fool; for he lacks credit, or wit, or both one and t'other who settles for his goods afore he's got 'em. There--there; be off with thee. Take em' what they want, and tell 'em the sooner they're all off these premises the better I shall like 'em. Bless the man! What's come to thee, now? Thy hands are shakin' like froze syllabub. Spillin' the ale all over the tray. Here--give it me; I'll carry it in."

[Sidenote: Master Sheppard in a hurry.]

Sheppard, however, was too quick for her. Ordinarily the less he bestirred himself, and the more his bustling active-minded wife did for him, even to the length of waiting personally on their guests, the better pleased he was; but now he absolutely pounced upon the tray, and carried it off at double quick trot, leaving Mistress Sheppard to stand looking after him in open-mouthed amazement, as he disappeared, closing the door of the guest-parlour carefully behind him.

"Hark! what was that?" Her ears, she thought, must have deceived her, rarely as they were given to it. Or did the lock of the door click and the bolts scrape in their grooves as if stealthily moved?

Mistress Sheppard stepped tiptoe across to the door, and noiselessly grasping its handle, she turned it and pushed at it, but to no purpose. "I like not that," she said to herself, when after a second attempt she turned away, and resuming her post among her bottles and cups, sat with knitted brows and eyes keenly riveted on the sturdy old wainscoted walls opposite as if she would fain have penetrated to the scene they hid. "I like it not," and then she set her arms akimbo, and gave a prolonged inquiring sniff. "And never a suspicion of tobacco neither," and deeper and deeper gathered the frowns. "That bodes no good neither; for men must be ill at ease with themselves indeed, before they forget to make chimneys o' their mouths. And not a sound," and she held her breath and listened intently. "Not a sound!"

Not one, truly, that could reach her; for that score or so of men, seated about the large table placed across the room's upper end, all spoke in half-whispering undertones, and ceased abruptly as Sheppard entered with his tray.

[Sidenote: Locked and bolted.]

"Bolt the door!" commanded the man seated at the head of the table.

"I crave pardon, Master Rumbold," began Sheppard, looking with a sickly smile from the speaker to the door, and back again to the speaker; "but my--my wife--"

"Exactly," interrupted Rumbold. "We don't need Mistress Sheppard's assistance in this business. It's bad enough already."

"Bolt the door! Dost hear, fellow?" said a handsome and richly-attired, but dissipated-looking man, with dark eyes and black-brown locks, who was seated next the maltster. "Bolt the door, and don't be all night about it."

[Sidenote: One out of a baker's dozen.]

"Ah, good lack! good lack!" feebly ejaculated Sheppard, no longer hesitating, and putting up the bolts as fast as his shaking fingers would let him. "Something gone wrong? Did you say something was gone wrong?" and he gazed in abject terror round the circle of gloomy faces, looming amid the shadows cast by the one oil-lamp hanging from the huge beam overhead, and which was all the light the room boasted. "What will become of us all now? I knew how 'twould be--I always said it would--"

"Thanks to you," said the dark-eyed man, with a malicious smile.

"Me!"

"Ay. My Lord Howard's right there," growled a stout thick-set man, somewhat far advanced in middle age, who sat near the fireplace, occupied in rubbing his shins with a tender hand. "It's all your infernal slippery banks we've to thank for it. Why the mischief can't you keep your garden banks in decent order?"

"Are you quite sure you don't mistake after all?" inquired Rumbold's neighbour of the last speaker, glancing down as he spoke at the sheaf of three-sided short blades spread out fan-wise upon the table. "There are twelve here."

"Ay, but 'twas a baker's dozen, my lord," said another voice. "Thirteen, so he says--"

"And I suppose I'm not a liar, Master Goodenough," cried the stout soldier, glowering sullenly at the individual who had hazarded the last observation. "Nor a cowardly idiot neither, like some folks here." Then he set to rubbing again at his damaged limb.

"Oh! the gracious powers forbid!" laughed Lord Howard, lifting his white jewelled hand, "we're all brave and honourable men here, surely. And vastly too clever to split like a bundle of twigs about nothing at all."

"Nothing!"

"Ay, less than nothing; for by my faith, Master Rumsey, I should be inclined to count this loss a fine omen. Thirteen's an unlucky number, so old wives say. And twelve of the things is enough in all conscience."

"And too many to my thinking," approvingly nodded Goodenough.

[Sidenote: Playing with edge tools.]

"Even if forced to extremes," continued Howard, "why, one of these sharp little Frenchmen here," and he began handling one of the blades as he spoke, and laid it lightly across his finger, "would do all the business in a twinkling. What say you, Master Rumbold?"

"That," answered Rumbold, breaking silence at last, "is not the point."

"No, by my faith! 'Tis but the edge," cried Lord Howard, with a grimace of sudden pain, and hastily throwing down the weapon, "the foul fiend's own grindstone must have sharpened the confounded blade!" And dragging his gossamer-laced handkerchief from his pocket, he wound it round his hand.

"Has it drawn blood, my lord?" timorously asked Goodenough, turning pale, and craning his neck forward.

[Sidenote: A warning.]

"Ay, has it, Master Sheriff," replied Howard, holding up his hand, and displaying its crimson-dyed cambric swathing, "and this helps but little to staunch it. Thanks, Master Lee," he went on, as Lawrence Lee, approaching from an obscure corner, took the wounded hand in his, and bound his own stout white linen handkerchief deftly about it; "I had better not have been quite so quick to meddle with it. Have a care what you are doing," he added, as Lee turned to replace the blade beside the rest. "Take warning by my fate."