



Produced by Polly Stratton





THE TAVERN KNIGHT


By Rafael Sabatini



CONTENTS

     I.  ON THE MARCH

     II.  ARCADES AMBO

     III.  THE LETTER

     IV.  AT THE SIGN OF THE MITRE

     V.  AFTER WORCESTER FIELD

     VI.  COMPANIONS IN MISFORTUNE

     VII.  THE TAVERN KNIGHT'S STORY

     VIII.  THE TWISTED BAR

     IX.  THE BARGAIN

     X.  THE ESCAPE

     XI.  THE ASHBURNS

     XII.  THE HOUSE THAT WAS ROLAND MARLEIGH'S

     XIII.  THE METAMORPHOSIS OF KENNETH

     XIV.  THE HEART OF CYNTHIA ASHBURN

     XV.  JOSEPH'S RETURN

     XVI.  THE RECKONING

     XVII.  JOSEPH DRIVES A BARGAIN

     XVIII.  COUNTER-PLOT

     XIX.  THE INTERRUPTED JOURNEY

     XX.  THE CONVERTED HOGAN

     XXI.  THE MESSAGE KENNETH BORE

     XXII.  SIR CRISPIN'S UNDERTAKING

     XXIII.  GREGORY'S ATTRITION

     XXIV.  THE WOOING OF CYNTHIA

     XXV.  CYNTHIA'S FLIGHT

     XXVI.  TO FRANCE

     XXVII.  THE AUBERGINE DU SOLEIL





THE TAVERN KNIGHT




CHAPTER I. ON THE MARCH

He whom they called the Tavern Knight laughed an evil laugh--such a
laugh as might fall from the lips of Satan in a sardonic moment.

He sat within the halo of yellow light shed by two tallow candles, whose
sconces were two empty bottles, and contemptuously he eyed the youth
in black, standing with white face and quivering lip in a corner of
the mean chamber. Then he laughed again, and in a hoarse voice, sorely
suggestive of the bottle, he broke into song. He lay back in his chair,
his long, spare legs outstretched, his spurs jingling to the lilt of his
ditty whose burden ran:

          On the lip so red of the wench that's sped
          His passionate kiss burns, still-O!
          For 'tis April time, and of love and wine
          Youth's way is to take its fill-O!
          Down, down, derry-do!

          So his cup he drains and he shakes his reins,
          And rides his rake-helly way-O!
          She was sweet to woo and most comely, too,
          But that was all yesterday-O!
          Down, down, derry-do!

The lad started forward with something akin to a shiver.

"Have done," he cried, in a voice of loathing, "or, if croak you must,
choose a ditty less foul!"

"Eh?" The ruffler shook back the matted hair from his lean, harsh
face, and a pair of eyes that of a sudden seemed ablaze glared at his
companion; then the lids drooped until those eyes became two narrow
slits--catlike and cunning--and again he laughed.

"Gad's life, Master Stewart, you have a temerity that should save
you from grey hairs! What is't to you what ditty my fancy seizes on?
'Swounds, man, for three weary months have I curbed my moods, and worn
my throat dry in praising the Lord; for three months have I been a
living monument of Covenanting zeal and godliness; and now that at last
I have shaken the dust of your beggarly Scotland from my heels, you--the
veriest milksop that ever ran tottering from its mother's lap would
chide me because, yon bottle being done, I sing to keep me from waxing
sad in the contemplation of its emptiness!"

There was scorn unutterable on the lad's face as he turned aside.

"When I joined Middleton's horse and accepted service under you, I held
you to be at least a gentleman," was his daring rejoinder.

For an instant that dangerous light gleamed again from his companion's
eye. Then, as before, the lids drooped, and, as before, he laughed.

"Gentleman!" he mocked. "On my soul, that's good! And what may you know
of gentlemen, Sir Scot? Think you a gentleman is a Jack Presbyter, or a
droning member of your kirk committee, strutting it like a crow in
the gutter? Gadswounds, boy, when I was your age, and George Villiers
lived--"

"Oh, have done!" broke in the youth impetuously. "Suffer me to leave
you, Sir Crispin, to your bottle, your croaking, and your memories."

"Aye, go your ways, sir; you'd be sorry company for a dead man--the
sorriest ever my evil star led me into. The door is yonder, and should
you chance to break your saintly neck on the stairs, it is like to be
well for both of us."

And with that Sir Crispin Galliard lay back in his chair once more, and
took up the thread of his interrupted song

          But, heigh-o! she cried, at the Christmas-tide,
          That dead she would rather be-O!
          Pale and wan she crept out of sight, and wept

          'Tis a sorry--

A loud knock that echoed ominously through the mean chamber, fell in
that instant upon the door. And with it came a panting cry of--

"Open, Cris! Open, for the love of God!"

Sir Crispin's ballad broke off short, whilst the lad paused in the act
of quitting the room, and turned to look to him for direction.

"Well, my master," quoth Galliard, "for what do you wait?"

"To learn your wishes, sir," was the answer sullenly delivered.

"My wishes! Rat me, there's one without whose wishes brook less waiting!
Open, fool!"

Thus rudely enjoined