How Sir Guy Kept His Tryst

: The Panchronicon

For one hour before sunset of that same day Phoebe had been patiently

waiting alone behind the east wall of the inn garden. As she had

expected, her step-mother had accompanied her father to London that

afternoon, and she found herself free for the time of their

watchfulness. She did not know that this apparent carelessness was based

upon knowledge of another surveillance more strict and secret, and

therefore more effe tive than their own.



The shadow of the wall within which she was standing lengthened more and

more rapidly, until, as the sun touched the western horizon, the whole

countryside to the east was obscured.



Phoebe moved out into the middle of the road which ran parallel to the

garden wall and looked longingly toward the north. A few rods away, the

road curved to the right between apple-trees whose blossoms gleamed more

pink with the touch of the setting sun.



"Nothing--no one yet!" she murmured. "Oh, Guy, if not for love, could

you not haste for life!"



As though in answer to her exclamation, there came to her ears a faint

tapping of horses' hoofs, and a few moments later three horsemen turned

the corner and bore down upon her.



One glance was enough to show her that Guy was not one of the group, and

Phoebe leaped back into the shadow of the wall. She felt that she must

not be seen watching here alone by anyone. As she stood beneath the

fringe of trees that stood outside of the garden wall, she looked about

for means of better concealment, and quickly noticed a narrow slit in

the high brick enclosure, just wide enough for a man to enter. It had

been barred with iron, but two of the bars had fallen from their

sockets, leaving an aperture which looked large enough to admit a

slender girl.



Phoebe felt instinctively that the approaching riders were unfriendly

in their purpose and, without pausing to weigh reasons, she quickly

scrambled through this accidental passage, not without tearing her

dress.



She found herself within the garden and not far from the very seat where

she had hidden from Will Shakespeare. How different her situation now,

she thought. Not diffidence, but fear, was now her motive--fear for the

man she loved and whom she alone could save.



While she listened there, half choked by the beating of her own heart,

she heard the three cavaliers beyond the wall. Their horses were walking

now, and the three conversed together in easily audible tones.



"My life on it, Will," said one, "'twas here the wench took cover!"



"Thine eyes are dusty, Jack," replied a deep voice. "'Twas farther on,

was it not, Harry?"



The horses stopped.



"Ay--you are i' the right, Will," was the answer. "By the same token,

how could the lass be here and we not see her? There's naught to hide a

cat withal."



"Nay--nay!" said Will. "Count upon it, Jack, the maid fled beyond the

turn yonder. Come on, lads!"



"I'll not stir hence!" said Jack, obstinately. "Who finds the girl,

catches the traitor, too. Go you two farther, an ye will. Jack Bartley

seeks here."



"Let it be e'en so, Will," said Harry, the third speaker. "Dismount we

here, you and me. Jack shall tie the nags to yon tree and seek where he

will. Do you and I creep onward afoot. So shall the maid, hearing no

footfall, be caught unaware."



"Have it so!" said Will.



Phoebe heard the three dismount and, trembling with apprehension,

listened anxiously for knowledge of what she dared not seek to see.



She heard the slow walk of the three horses, shortly interrupted, and

she knew that they were being tethered. Then there was a murmur of

voices and silence.



This was the most agonizing moment of that eventful night for Phoebe.

Strain her ears as she might, naught could she hear but the shake of a

bridle, the stamp of an occasional hoof, and the cropping of grass. The

next few seconds seemed an hour of miserable uncertainty and suspense.

She knew now that she was watched, that perhaps her plans were fully

known, and all hope for her lover seemed past. She had called him hither

and he would walk alone and unaided into the arms of these three

mercenaries.



She clasped her hands and looked desperately about her as though for

inspiration. To the right an open sward led the eye to the out-buildings

surrounding the inn. To the left a dense thicket of trees and bushes

shut in the view.



Suddenly she started violently. Her ear had caught the snapping of a

twig close at hand, beyond the concealing wall. At the next moment she

saw a stealthy hand slip past the opening by which she had entered, and

the top of a man's hat appeared.



Like a rabbit that runs to cover, she turned noiselessly and dashed into

the friendly thicket. Here she stopped with her hand on her heart and

glanced wildly about her. Well she knew that her concealment here could

be but momentary. Where next could she find shelter?



A heap of refuse, stones and dirt, leaves and sticks, was heaped against

that portion of the wall, and at sight of this a desperate plan crossed

her mind.



"'Tis that or nothing!" she whispered, and, still under cover of the

shrubbery, she hurried toward the rubbish heap.



In the meantime, Jack, whose quick eye had descried that ancient opening

in the wall, perceived by neither of his companions, was standing just

within the wall gazing about for some clue to his prey's location.



Phoebe leaped upon the refuse heap and scrambled to the top. To her

dismay, there was a great crashing of dead wood as she sank nearly to

her knees in the accumulated rubbish.



Jack uttered a loud exclamation of triumph and leaped toward the

thicket. Poor Phoebe heard his cry, and for an instant all seemed

hopeless. But hers was a brave young soul, and, far from fainting in her

despair, a new vigor possessed her.



Grasping the limb of a tree beside her, she drew herself up until, with

one foot she found a firm rest on the top of the wall. Then, forgetting

her tender hands and limbs, straining, gripping, and scrambling, she

knew not how, she flung herself over the wall and fell in a bruised and

ragged heap on the grass beyond.



When her pursuer reached the thicket, he was confounded to find no one

in sight.



Phoebe lay for one moment faint and relaxed upon the ground. The

landscape turned to swimming silhouettes before her eyes, and all sounds

were momentarily stilled. Then life came surging back in a welcome tide

and she rose unsteadily to her feet. She walked as quickly as she could

to where the three horses stood loosely tied by their bridles to a

tree. At any moment the man she feared might appear again at the

opening in the wall.



She untied all three horses and, choosing a powerful gray for her own,

she slipped his bridle over her arm so as to leave both hands free.

Then, bringing together the bridles of the other two, she tied them

together in a double knot, then doubled that, and struck the two animals

sharply with the bridle of the gray. Naturally they started off in

different directions, and, pulling at their bridles, dragged them into

harder knots than her weak fingers could have tied.



She laughed in the triumph of her ingenuity and scrambled with foot and

knee and hand into place astride of the remaining steed. Thus in the

seclusion of the pasture had she often ridden her mare Nancy home to the

barn.



There was a shout of anger and amazement from the road, and she saw the

two men who had elected to walk farther on running toward her.



Turning her steed, she slapped his neck with the bridle and chopped at

his flanks with the stirrups as best she could. The horse broke into an

easy canter, and for the moment she was free.



Unfortunately, Phoebe found herself virtually without means for urging

her steed to his best pace. Accustomed as he was to the efficient

severity of a man's spurred heel, he paid little attention to her

gentle, though urgent, voice, and even the stirrups were hardly

available substitutes for spurs, since her feet could not reach them

and she could only kick them flapping back against the horse's sides.



Her one chance was that she might meet Sir Guy in time, and she could

only pray that the knots in the bridles of the remaining horses would

long defy every effort to release them. As she turned the curve among

the apple-trees, she looked back and saw that the horses had been caught

and that all three men were frantically tugging and picking with fingers

and teeth at those obstinate knots.



Phoebe drew up for a moment a few yards beyond the curve and broke off

a long, slender switch from an overhanging bough. Then, urging the horse

forward again, she picked off the small branches until at length she had

produced a smooth, pliant switch, far more effective than bridle or

stirrup. By the help of this new whip, she made a little better speed,

but well she knew that her capture was only a matter of time unless she

could find her lover.



Great was her joy, therefore, when she turned the next curve in the

road; for, straight ahead, not twenty rods away, she saw Sir Guy

approaching at a canter, leading a second horse.



By this time the twilight was deepening, and the young cavalier gazed in

astonishment upon the ragged girl riding toward him astride, making

silent gestures of welcome and warning. Not until he was within twenty

yards of her did Sir Guy recognize his sweetheart.



"Mary!" he cried.



Together they reined in their horses, and instantly Phoebe slipped to

the ground.



"Quick, Guy--quick!" she exclaimed. "Help me to mount yon saddle.

Come--come!"



Leaping at once from his horse, Sir Guy lifted Phoebe to the back of

the beast he had been leading, which was provided with a side-saddle,

the stirrup of which carried a spur. Stopping only to kiss her hand, he

mounted his own steed, turned about, and followed Phoebe, who had

already set off at her best speed. Even as they started, they heard a

shout behind them, and Phoebe knew that the pursuit had begun in

earnest.



"What is it--who are they whom you flee?" asked the young knight, as he

came to Phoebe's side.



"Men seeking thee, Guy--for reward! There is a price on thy head, dear.

For high treason! Oh, may God aid us this night!"



"High treason!" he exclaimed. Then, after a pause, he continued, in a

stern voice:



"How many be they?"



"Two."



Sir Guy laughed in evident relief.



"But two! By my troth, why should we fear them, sweetheart?" he said.

"An I be not a match for four of these scurvy rascals, call me not

knight!"



"Alas--alas!" cried Phoebe, in alarm, as she saw Sir Guy slacken his

pace. "Stay not to fight, Guy. Urge on--urge on! The whole countryside

is awake. How, then, canst thou better thee by fighting two? Nay,

on--on!" and she spurred again, beckoning him after with an imperious

hand.



He yielded to her reasoning, and soon reached her side again.



"We must to London Bridge, Guy," Phoebe said. "Know you a way back

thither?"



"Wherefore to London, sweet?" asked Guy. "Were we not safer far afield?

Why seek the shadow of the Tower?"



"One way is left thee," said she, with intense earnestness. "A way that

is known to me alone. Thereby only canst thou escape. Oh, trust

me--trust me, dear heart! Only I can guide thee to safety and to

freedom!"



"On, my Mary!" he cried, gayly. "Lead on! Thou art my star!"



For the moment both forgot the danger behind them. The intoxication of

an ideal and self-forgetting trust--a merger of all else in

tenderness--flooded their souls and passed back and forth between them

in their mutual glances.



Then came that pursuing shout again, much nearer than before, and with a

shock the two lovers remembered their true plight.



Sir Guy reined in his steed.



"Halt--halt, Mary!" he commanded. "We must conceal us here in this dell

till that these fellows pass us. Then back to London by the way we came.

There is no other road."



Obedient now in her turn, Phoebe drew rein and followed her lover up

the bed of a small stream which crossed the road at this point. Behind a

curtain of trees they waited, and ere long saw their two pursuers dart

past them and disappear in a cloud of dust down the road.



"They will stop at the next dwelling to ask news of us, and thus learn

of our evasion," said Guy. "The chase has but begun. Come, sweet, let us

hasten southward again."



Darkness had now begun to fall in earnest, and as the two fugitives

passed the Peacock Inn, no one saw them.



They were soon near enough to the city gate to find many houses on

either hand, and Sir Guy deemed it wiser to move at a reasonable pace,

for fear of attracting suspicion in a neighborhood already aroused by

rumors of the man-hunt which had begun. They could count upon the

obscurity to conceal their identity.



They had not proceeded far beyond the inn when they met a party of

travellers on horseback, one of whom uttered a pleasant "Good-even!"



"Good-even!" said Phoebe, thinking only of due courtesy.



"What the good jere!" cried a voice from the rear of the group. "What

dost thou here, Poll?"



"My father!" exclaimed Phoebe, in terror.



"Hush!" whispered Sir Guy, putting his hand upon her bridle. "Ride

forward at an easy gait until I give example of haste."



They trotted quietly past the greater number of the group until a dark

figure approached and a voice in the gloom said, severely:



"What dost thou here? Who rides with thee, lass?"



Sir Guy now leaned forward and spurred his horse, leaping away into the

darkness without a word. In equal silence Phoebe followed his example

and galloped headlong close behind her lover.



"Help, ho!" yelled old Sir Isaac. "'Tis the traitor Fenton, with my

daughter! After them--stop them--a Burton--a Burton!" and, mad with

excitement, the angry father set off in hot pursuit. With one accord the

others wheeled about and joined in the chase, uttering cries and

imprecations that rang through the country for a mile around.



"Now have we need of speed!" said Sir Guy, as they galloped together

toward London, whose walls were now visible in the distance. "Soon will

the whole country join the hue-and-cry. The watch will meet us at the

gate."



"'Twere better, were it not," Phoebe suggested, "that we turn to the

left and make a circuit into the Aldersgate?"



"Good wit, my lady!" cried Guy, whose excitement had taken on the form

of an exalted gayety. "Who rides with thee rides safe, my love--e'en as

Theseus of old did ride, scathless 'neath the spell of protecting

Pallas!"



"Stuff!" said Phoebe, spurring again, with a smile.



Guy led the way at once across country to the eastward, the soft English

turf so deadening their hoof-beats that those behind them had no clue to

their change of route.



When the pursuing party reached the Bishopsgate, they met the watch and

learned that no one had passed since the hue-and-cry was heard.



"Here divide we, then," cried stout Sir Isaac Burton. "Let eight follow

them around the wall, while I with other six ride on, that, if haply

they have entered London by the Aldersgate, we may meet them within the

city."



The suggestion was adopted, and, all unconscious of their peril, the

lovers were rapidly hemmed in between two bands of pursuers. Sir Guy and

Phoebe reached the Aldersgate unmolested and were allowed to pass in

without protest, as the hue-and-cry had not yet reached so far. They

ambled quietly past the watch, arousing no suspicion, but no sooner had

they turned the first corner than once more they urged their tired

horses to greater exertion.



"Choose we the side streets," said Guy. "Who knows what watch hath been

set on Gracechurch Street. 'Tis for London Bridge we are bound, is't

not?"



"Yes," said Phoebe. "I pray no prying watch detain us ere we pass that

way!"



Picking their way through the dark and narrow streets at a pace

necessarily much reduced, they slowly approached their goal, until at

length, on emerging into New Fish Street, they discerned the towering

walls of London Bridge.



Here they reined in suddenly with one accord, for, plainly visible in

the moonlight, a group of horsemen was gathered and there was borne to

their ears the sturdy voice of Sir Isaac.



"Hallo!" he cried. "There be riders in New Fish Street. See where they

lurk in the shadow! What ho, there! Give a name! Stand forth there!"



Sir Guy drew his sword.



"'Tis time for steel to answer!" he laughed.



"Nay--nay! Wait--wait!" said Phoebe, earnestly. "There must be other

issue than in blood!"



Two or three horsemen now detached themselves from the group near the

bridge and cantered up New Fish Street. Sir Isaac was among them.



"Are ye there, traitor?" he cried. "Where is my daughter?"



Sir Guy was about to reply when Phoebe put her hand on his arm.



"Hush!" she whispered. "Hearken!"





Faint at first, but growing momentarily louder, there came the clear

trilling of a mysterious bell. It floated out from the dark by-ways

whence they had themselves just emerged, and something eerie and uncanny

in its clamor brought a thrill of terror to the young knight's nerves

for the first time.



"Now, what in God's name--" he began.



But he broke off in horror, for there flashed past him, as silent as

the wind and swifter, a dark, bent figure, with flying cloak, under

which, as the moonlight struck him, there whirled a web of glittering

tissue whereon he seemed to ride. That uncanny tinkling floated back

from this strange vision, confirming to the ear what otherwise might

have appeared a mere trick of the vision.



As for Sir Isaac and his band, the distant bell had early

brought them to a wondering stand; and now, as this rushing

phantom--trilling--trilling--trilling--swept down on a living moonbeam,

with one accord they put spurs to their steeds, and with cries of horror

fled in all directions.



"Forward!" cried Phoebe, exultantly. "Why, what now!" she exclaimed,

as she saw her lover still sitting petrified with fear. "How now,

my knight! Why sit you here amazed? Is not the way clear?

Come--follow--follow!" and she started forward on a trot.



But her lover did not move, and she was obliged to turn back. Laying her

hand on his arm:



"Why, what ails thee, dear heart?" she asked.



"The spectre--the ghostly steed!" he stammered.



"Oh--oh!" laughed Phoebe. "Why, this was but some venturous bicyclist

on his wheel!"



"A bicyclist!" exclaimed Sir Guy. "Can you thus give a name to this

black phantom, Mary?"



"'Tis naught, dear Guy, believe me!" she said. Then, in pleading tones,

she continued: "Didst not agree to trust thy lady, dear?"



The young knight passed his hand over his eyes and straightened himself

resolutely in his saddle.



"E'en to the death, love. Lead on! I shall not falter!"



They trotted forward through a now silent street to the bridge, and soon

found themselves enveloped in the darkness and assailed by the countless

odors of London Bridge. From time to time they crossed a path of

moonlight, and here Phoebe would smile into the eyes of her still

much-puzzled lover and murmur words of encouragement.



Before they reached Southwark, there rang out behind them the sound of

hoofs upon the stones of the bridge.



"Can these be your father's minions, think you?" said Sir Guy.



"Nay!" Phoebe exclaimed. "Rest assured, they were scattered too far to

dog our steps again to-night."



They emerged some moments later on the Southwark side and saw the

pillory towering ahead of them.



"How far shall we fare to-night, love?" asked the knight.



"To Newington on horseback," Phoebe replied, "and then--well, then

shalt thou see more faring."



There was a loud cry from the bridge, startling the pair from their

fancied security.



"There they ride! The watch, ho! Stop the traitor! Stop him! For the

Queen! For the Queen!"



"God help us!" cried Phoebe. "'Tis the two yeomen of the Peacock Inn!"



With one accord the pair clapped spurs to their horses' sides and

resumed once more the flight which they had thought concluded.