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Dark Frigate

<h2>CHAPTER IV THE GIRL AT THE INN</h2> As they came at nightfall to the inn whither Martin had been determined they should find their way, a coach drawn by two horses clattered down the village street and drew up at the inn gate before them. There was calling and shouting. Hostlers came running from the stables and stood by the horses' heads. The landlord himself stood by the coach door to welcome his guests and servants unloaded their boxes. The coachman in livery sat high above the tumult, his arms folded in lofty pride, and out of the coach into the light from the inn door there stepped an old gentleman who gallantly handed down his lady. The hostlers leaped away from the bridles, the coachman resumed the reins, and when the procession of guests, host, and servants had moved into the great room where a fire blazed on the hearth, the horses, tossing their heads, proceeded to the stable. All this the two foot-weary travellers saw, as unobserved in the bustle and stir, they made their way quietly toward the rear of the building. When they passed a dimly lighted window Martin glanced slyly around and with quick steps ran over to it and peeped in. Whatever he sought, he failed to find it, and he returned with a scowl. The two had chosen the opposite side of the house from the stable and no one perceived their cautious progress. Martin repeated his act at a second window and at a third, but he got small satisfaction, as his steadily darkening frown indicated. They came at last to a brighter window than any of the others, and this he approached with greater caution. He crouched under it and raised his great head slowly from the very corner until one eye saw into the room, which was filled with light and gave forth the clatter and hum of a great domestic bustling. Here he remained a long time, now ducking his head and now bobbing it up again, and when he came away a smile had replaced his frown. "She's here," he whispered. "From now on we've a plain course to sail, without rock or sandbar." They retraced their steps and went boldly round the inn to the kitchen door. There were lights in the stable and men talking loudly of one thing and another. From the kitchen door, which stood ajar, came the rattle of dishes and the smell of food and a great bawling and clamouring as the mistress directed and the maids ran. With a jaunty air and an ingratiating smile, Martin boldly stepped to the door. He knocked and waited but no one heeded his summons. A scowl replaced his smile and he knocked with redoubled vigour. The sound rang out clearly in the inn yard. Several men came to the door of the stable to see what was the matter and the clamour in the kitchen ceased. Steps approached, a firm hand threw wide the door, and a woman cried with harsh voice, "Well, then, what'll you have, who come to the back when honest folk go to the front?" There was for a moment a disagreeable cast in Martin's eyes, but his facile mouth resumed its easy smile. "An it please you, mistress, there are two gentlemen here would have a word with Nell Entick." "Gentlemen!" she cried with a great guffaw. "Gentry of the road, I make no doubt, who would steal away all the girl has—it's little enough, God knows." A couple of men came sauntering out of the stable and the kitchen maids stood a-titter. Martin sputtered and stammered and grew redder than before, which she perceiving, bawled in a great voice that rang through the kitchen and far into the house, "Nell Entick, Nell Entick! Devil take the wench, is she deaf as an adder? Nell Entick, here's a 'gentleman' come to the kitchen door to see thee, his face as red as a reeky coal to kindle a pipe of tobacco with." A shrill chorus of women's laughter came from the kitchen, echoed by a chorus of bass from the stable, and Phil Marsham stepped back in the dark, unwilling to be companioned with the man who had drawn such ridicule upon himself. But as Martin thrust himself forward with a show of bluster and bravado, the click of light footsteps came down the passage, and through the kitchen walked a girl whose flush of anger wondrously became her handsome face. "Where is the wretch," she cried, and stepping on the doorstone, stood face to face with Martin. "So, 'tis thou," she sneered. "I thought as much. Well—" she suddenly stopped, perceiving Phil, who stood nearly out of sight in the shadow. "Who is that?" she asked. The mistress had returned to the kitchen, the girls to their work, the men to the stable. "Th'art the same wench," Martin cried in anger, seizing at her hand. "Hard words for old acquaintance, and a warm glance for a strange face." She snatched her hand away and cuffed him on the ear with a force that sent him staggering. Though he liked it little, he swallowed his wrath. "Come, chuck," he coaxed her, "let bygones lie. Tell me, will he turn his hand to help his brother?" She laughed curtly. "The last time he spoke your name, he said he would put his hand in his pocket to pay the sexton that dug your grave and would find pleasure in so doing; but that he'd then let you lie with never a stone to mark the place, and if the world forgot you as soon as he, the better for him." "But sure he could not mean it?" "He did." Martin swore vilely under his breath. From the kitchen came the landlady's voice. "Nell Entick, Nell, I say! Gad-about! Good-for-nought!" "Go to the stable," she whispered, "and tell them I sent you to wait there. She'll be in better humour in an hour's time. It may be I can even bring you in here." She shot another glance over Martin's shoulder at the slim form of Phil Marsham and went away smiling. Few in the stable looked twice at the two strangers in worn coats and dusty shoes who entered and sat on a bench by the wall, for there is as much pride of place in a stable as in a palace. There was talk of racing and hunting and fairs, and the beasts champed their oats, and everywhere was the smell of horses and harness. Presently there came from the inn a coachman in livery and him they greeted with nods and good-morrows, for he was sleek and well fed and, after a manner, haughty, which commanded their respect. He sat down among them affably, as one conscious of his place in the world but desiring—provided they recognized him as a man of position—to be magnanimous to all; and after inquiring into the welfare of his horses he spoke of the weather and the roads. "Hast come far?" a wrinkled old man asked. "Aye, from Larwood." "The horses stood the day's travel well?" "Aye, they are good beasts. But much depends on proper handling. It makes a deal of difference who holds the reins." He looked about with an air of generous patronage. "That, and their meat." He nodded toward one of the men. "'Tis well, though, when at night they are well fed, to fill the rack with barley-straw or wheat ere leaving them, as I showed thee, that perceiving it is not pleasant they may lie down and take their rest, which is in itself as good as meat for the next day's work." A general murmur of assent greeted this observation. "Goest far?" another asked. "Aye, to Lincoln." A rumble of surprise ran about the stable and the deference of the stablemen visibly increased. "Hast been long away?" "Aye, six weeks to the day." "It do take a deal of silver to travel thus." "Aye, aye." He condescended to smile. "But there are few of the clergy in England can better afford a journey to the Isle o' Wight than the good Dr. Marsham, and he is one who grudges nought when his lady hath been ill. 'Tis wonderful what travel will do for the ailing. Aye, he hath visited in many great houses and I have seen good company while we have been on the road." Phil had looked up. "Where is this Doctor Marsham's home?" he asked. All frowned at the rash young man's temerity in thus familiarly accosting the powerful personage in livery, and none more accusingly than the personage himself; but with a scornful lift of his brows he replied in a manner to tell all who were present that such as he were above mere arrogance. "Why, young man, he comes from a place you doubtless never heard of, keeping as you doubtless do, so close at home: from Little Grimsby." Martin glanced at Phil. "The name, it seems, is thine own. Hast ever been at Little Grimsby?" "Never." And with that they forgot Philip Marsham, or at all events treated him as if he had never existed. "'Tis few o' the clergy ride in their own coaches," someone said, with an obsequiousness that went far to conciliate the magnificent coachman. "Aye, very few," he said smiling, "but Dr. Marsham is well connected and a distant relation some years since left him a very comfortable fortune—not to mention that in all England there are few better livings than his. There is no better blood in the country than runs in his veins. You'd be surprised if I was to tell you of families he's connected with." So the talk ran. Presently a little boy appeared from the darkness beyond the door and hunting out Martin, touched his shoulder and beckoned. Martin, having long nursed his ill temper, rose. "It is time," he said, "yea, more than time." With swagger and toss he elbowed his way out past the liveried coachman; but missing Phil he turned and saw him still sitting on the bench, his eyes fixed on the harness hanging on the opposite wall. "Come, come," he called loudly. "Come, make haste! Where are thy wits? Phil, I say!" Starting suddenly awake from his revery, Phil got up and followed Martin out of the stable, seeing no one, and so blindly pressed at his heels, so little heeded what went on about him, that the sudden burst of laughter his absence of mind had occasioned passed unheard over his head. In the kitchen, whither the boy led them, they found places laid at one end of a great table and Nell Entick waiting to serve them, who gave Martin cold glances but looked long and curiously at Phil Marsham. The mistress and the other girls were gone. The boy sat in the corner, by the great fireplace where the roast had been turning on the now empty spit. Nell set before them a pitcher of beer and all that was left of a venison pasty. Martin ate greedily and whispered to her and talked in a mumbling undertone, but she gave him short answers till his temper flew beyond his grasp and he knocked over his beer in reaching for her. "Witch!" he snarled. "Yea, look him in the eye! His wits are a-wandering again." Looking up, Phil met her eyes staring boldly into his. He leaned back and smiled, for she was a comely lass. "Have the two guests who came tonight in a coach gone yet to bed?" he asked. "How should I know that?" His question baffled her and she looked at him from under her long lashes, half, perhaps, in search of some hidden meaning in his words, but certainly a full half because she knew that her eyes were her best weapons and that the stroke was a telling one. She made little of his meaning but her thrust scored. He looked at her again and marked the poise of her shapely head, the curves of neck and shoulders, the full bosom, the bare arms. But his mind was still set on that other matter and he persisted in his design. "I want," he said slowly, "to see them—to see them without their knowing or any one's knowing—except you and me." Here he met her at her own game, and he was not so far carried away but that he could inwardly smile to see his own shot tell. "They have supped in the little parlor and are sitting there by the fire," she whispered. "It may cost me my place—but—" Again she looked at him under her long lashes. He gave her as good as she sent, and she whispered, "Come, then—come." Martin gave an angry snort over his beer, but she returned a hot glance and an impatient gesture. With Phil pressing close at her heels she led the way out of the kitchen and down a long passage. Stopping with her finger on her lips, she very quietly opened a door and motioned him forward. Again her finger at her lips! With her eyes she implored silence. Without so much as the creaking of a board he stepped through the door. A second door, which stood ajar, led into the little parlor and through the crack he saw an old man with long white hair and beard—an old man with a kindly face mellowed by years of study, perhaps by years of disappointment and anxiety. The old man's eyes were shut, for he was dozing. In a chair on the other side of the hearth a lady sat, but only the rich border of her gown showed through the partly open door. The lad stood there with a lump in his throat and a curious mingling of emotions in his heart and head. It had happened so suddenly, so strangely, he felt that baffling sense of unreality which comes sometimes to all of us. He touched the wall to make sure he was not dreaming. Had he but stayed in school, as his father had desired, and gone back to Little Grimsby, who knew what might have come of it? But no! He was a penniless vagabond, a waif astray on the highroads of England. He was now of a mind to speak out; now of a mind to slip like a fox to earth. His gay, gallant ne'er-do-weel of a father was gone. He was alone in the world save for his chance acquaintance of the road, which was perhaps worse than being entirely alone. What madness—he wondered as he looked at the kindly face of the drowsy old man—had led Tom Marsham away from his home? Or was it more than a mere mad prank? Had the manners of a country vicarage so stifled him that he became desperate? As Phil thought of Martin drinking in the kitchen, a wave of revulsion swept over him; but after all, his father had kept such company in his own life, and though he had brought up the boy to better things, the father's reckless and adventurous nature, in spite of his best intentions, had drawn the son into wild ways. Something rose in Phil's throat and choked him, but the hot pride that came straightly and honestly from his father now flamed high. He knew well enough that Tom Marsham had had his faults, and of a kind to close upon him the doors of such a home as the vicarage at Little Grimsby; but he had been a lovable man none the less and Tom Marsham's son was loyal. The girl, daring not speak, was tugging at Phil's coat in an agony of misgivings. He stepped softly back, closed the door on a world he might have entered, and carried away with him the secret that would have brought peace—if a sad, almost bitter peace—to two lonely souls. He paused in the passage and the girl stopped beside him. There was no one in sight or hearing, and he kissed her. Such is the curious complexity with which impressions and emotions crowd upon one, that even while the vicarage at Little Grimsby and his dead father were uppermost in his thoughts, he was of a mind then and for many a long day thereafter to come back and marry her. Since he had closed the door through which he might have passed, this was a golden dream to cling to in hard times and glad, he thought. For he had caught her fancy as well as she his and she kissed him full on the lips; and being in all ways his father's son, he fell victim to a kitchen wench's bright eyes at the very moment when Little Grimsby was within his reach, as has father had done before him. Then they walked out into the kitchen, trying to appear as if nothing had happened, and Martin, perceiving their red cheeks, only sneered. "You must sleep on the hay," she whispered; and to Martin, "I'll send him word before morning and give you his reply." So they again followed the little boy through the darkness to the stable by a back way, and climbed a ladder to the great mow and crawled behind a mountain of hay, and lay with their thoughts to bear them company while men far below talked of country affairs, horses were trampling uneasily in their stalls, and the little boy was off through the night with a message. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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