Chapter XIX: Sir Blaise Pays His Respects

Sir Blaise Mickleton was, in his own eyes and in the eyes of the village girls of Harby, a vastly fine gentleman. If they had ever heard of the sun-god, Phoebus Apollo would have presented himself to their rusticity in some such guise as the personality of the local knight. Sir Blaise had been to London--once--had kissed the King's hand at Whitehall, and had ever since striven vehemently to be more Londonish than the Londoner. He talked with what he thought to be the town's drawl; he walked, as he believed, with the town walk over the grasses of his grounds and on the Harby high-roads. He plagued the village tailor with strange devices for coats and cloaks; many-colored as a Joseph, he strutted through bucolic surroundings as if he carried the top-knot of the mode in the Mall; he glittered in ribbons and trinkets, floundered rather than swam in a sea of essences, yet scarcely succeeded in amending, with all this false foppishness, the something bumpkin that was at the root of his nature. He was of a lusty natural with the sanguine disposition, and held himself as much above the most of his neighbors as he knew himself to be below the house of Harby. He was no double-face, friendly with both sides; he was rather for peeping from behind the parted doors of the temple of peace upon a warring world without, and making fast friends with the victor. He had very little doubt that the victor would be the King, but just enough doubt to permit his surrender to a distemper that kept him to his bed till Edgehill proved the amazing remedy.

Sir Blaise peacocked over the lawn, delicate as Agag. He murdered the morning air with odors, his raiment outglowed the rainbow; one hand dandled his staff, the other caressed his mustaches. He strove to smile adoration on Brilliana, but mistrust marred his ogle, and a shiver of fear betrayed his simper of confidence. Brilliana watched him gravely with never a word or a sign, and her silence intensified his discomfiture by the square of the distance he had yet to traverse.

"Coxcomb," she thought, and "coward," she thought, and "cur," she thought.

He could not read her thought, but he could read her tightened lips and her hostile eyes, and he wished himself again in bed at Mickleton. But it was too late to retreat, and he advanced in bad order under the silent fire of her disdain till he paused at what he deemed to be the proper place for ceremonious salutation. He uncovered, describing so magnificent a sweep of extended hat that its plumes brushed the grasses at her feet. He bowed so low that his pink face disappeared from view in the forward fall of his lovelocks. When the rising inflection shook these back and the pink face again confronted her, he seemed to have recovered some measure of assertion.

"Lady," he said, sighingly, "I kiss your mellifluous fingers and believe myself in Elysium."

The languishing glance that accompanied these languishing syllables had no immediate effect upon the lady to whom they were addressed. Still Brilliana looked fixedly at her visitor, and still Sir Blaise found little ease under her steady gaze. He blinked uncomfortably; his fingers twitched; he tried to moisten his dry lips. At length, out of what seemed a wellnigh ageless silence, the lady spoke, and her words were an arraignment.

"Why did you not come to Harby when Harby needed help?"

Sir Blaise felt weak in the knees, weak in the back, weak in the wits; he would have given much for a seat, more for a sup of brandy. But he had to speak, and did so after such gasping and stammering as spoiled his false bravado.

"I came to speak of that," he protested, forcing a jauntiness that he was far from feeling. "I feared you might misunderstand--"

"Indeed," interrupted Brilliana, "I think there is no misunderstanding."

Sir Blaise made an appealing gesture.

"Hear me out," he pleaded. "Hear me and pity me. The news of his Majesty's quarrel with his Parliament threw me into such a distemper as hath kept me to my bed these three weeks. My people held all news from me for my life's sake. It was but this morning I was judged sound enough to hear of all that has passed. How otherwise should I not have flown to your succor? I could wish your siege had lasted a while longer to give me the glory of delivering you."

The sternness faded from Brilliana's gaze. She was not really angry with this overcareful gentleman; she would only have been grieved had he proved the man to serve her well. He was no more for such enterprises than your lap-dog for bull-baiting. Ridiculous in his finery, pitiful in his subterfuge, he was only a thing to smile at, to trifle with. So she smiled, and, rising, swept him a splendid reverence.

"I am your gallantry's very grateful servant," she whispered, having much ado to keep from laughing in his face. The fatuous are easily pacified.

"I hope you do not doubt my valor?" he asked, with some show of reassurance.

"Indeed I have no doubt," Brilliana answered, with another courtesy. The speech might have two meanings. Sir Blaise, unwilling to split hairs, took it as balsam, and hurriedly turned the conversation.

"Well! well!" he hummed. "You seem nothing the worse for your business."

"I am something the better," she said, softly. Perhaps Sir Blaise did not hear her.

"Is it true," he asked, "that you harbor a Crop-ear in this house?"

"Indeed," Brilliana confirmed, "I hold him as hostage for the life of Cousin Randolph. You know that he is a prisoner?"

"I heard that news with the rest of the budget," Sir Blaise answered. "And what kind of a creature is your captive? Does he deafen you with psalms, does he plague you with exhortations?"

Brilliana laughed merrily.

"No, no; 'tis a most wonderful wild-fowl. My people swear he is mettled in all gentle arts, from the manage of horses to the casting of a falcon."

Sir Blaise shook his staff in protest of indignation.

"Is it possible that such a rascal usurps the privileges of gentlefolk?"

"He carries himself like a gentleman," Brilliana answered. "More's the pity that he should be false to his king and his kind."

Sir Blaise smiled condescendingly.

"Believe me, dear lady, you are misled. A woman may be deceived by an exterior. Doubtless he has picked up his gentility in the servants' hall of some great house, and seeks to curry your favor by airing it."

"He has persuaded those that are shrewd judges of men to praise him."

Again Sir Blaise laughed his fat laugh.

"Ha, ha! Shrewd judges of men. I will take no man's judgment but my own of this rascal. Had I word with him you should soon see me set him down."

Brilliana's glance wandering from the pied pomposity who strutted before her, saw a sharp contrast through the yew-tree arch. A man in sober habit was moving slowly over the grass in the direction of the pleasaunce, moving slowly, for he was carrying an open book and his eyes were fixed upon its pages. Truly the sombre Puritan made a better figure than her swaggering neighbor. She looked up at Sir Blaise with a pretty maliciousness in her smile.

"You can have your will even now," she said, "for I spy my prisoner coming here--and reading, too."

Sir Blaise swung round upon his heels and stared in the direction indicated by Brilliana. He saw Evander, black against the sunlit trees, the sunlit grasses, and he smiled derisively. He was very confident that there was no courage as there could be no wit in any Puritan. These things were the privileges of Cavaliers.

"His brains are buried in his book," he sneered. "If a stone came in his way now he would stumble over it, he's so deep in his sour studies. 'Tis some ponderous piece of divinity, I'll wager, levelled against kings."

He thought he was speaking low to his companion, but his was not a voice of musical softness, and its tones jarred the quiet air. Evander caught the sound of it, lifted his head, and, looking before him over his book, saw in the yew haven Brilliana seated and a gaudy-coated gentleman standing by her side. He was immediately for turning and hastening in another direction, but Brilliana, for all she hated him, would not now have it so. Perhaps she had been piqued by Sir Blaise's too confident assumption of superiority to the judgment of her people; perhaps she thought it might divert her to see Puritan and Cavalier face each other before her in the shadowed circle of yews. Whatever her reason, she raised her hand and raised her voice to stay Evander's purpose.

"Sir, sir!" she cried. "Mr. Cloud, by your leave, I would have you come hither. Do not turn aside."

Thus summoned, Evander walked with slightly quickened pace to the place where Brilliana sat and saluted her with formal courtesy.

"I cry your pardon," he declared. "I would not intrude on your quiet, but I read and walked unconscious that there was company among the yews."

Brilliana answered him with the dignity of a gracious and benevolent queen.

"Do not withdraw, sir; you have the liberty of Loyalty House, and I would not have you avoid any part of its gardens."

Evander bowed. Sir Blaise broke into a horse-laugh which grated more on Brilliana's ears than on Evander's. Brilliana was at heart rather angry that for once Puritan should show better than Cavalier.

"You are a vastly happy jack to be used so gently," he bellowed. "Some would have stuck such a hostage in a garret and done well enough."

Evander still kept his eyes fixed on the lady of the house and seemed to have no ears for the jeering Cavalier. With a lift of the hand that indicated and saluted the prospect, he said, smoothly, "You have a very gracious garden, lady."

Mirth shone discreetly in Brilliana's eyes as she gave the Puritan a bow for his praise. The Cavalier, a viola da gamba of anger, pegged his string of bluster tighter.

"Did not the fellow hear me?" he cried, and this time his noise won him a moment of attention. Evander gave him a glance, and then, returning to Brilliana, said, with a manner of amused contempt, "You have a very ungracious gardener."

Sir Blaise's pink face purpled; Sir Blaise's hand swung to the hilt of his sword. Evander seemed to have forgotten his existence and to await quietly any further favor of speech from Brilliana. My Lady Mischief, much diverted, judged it time to intervene.

"Lordamercy!" she cried, as she rose from her seat and moved a little way towards Sir Blaise. "Let me bring you acquainted."

The Cavalier caught her hand and stayed her before she could speak his name.

"Wait, wait," he whispered. "Watch me roast him."

He swung away from her and swaggered towards Evander. "Tell me, solemn sir," he questioned, "have you heard of one Sir Blaise Mickleton?"

"I have heard of him," Evander answered. His tranquil indifference to Sir Blaise's bearing, to Sir Blaise's splendor of apparel, pricked the knight like a sting. He tried to change the sum of his irritation into the small money of wit.

"You have never heard that he snuffled through his nose, turned up his eyes, mewed psalms and canticles, and dubbed himself by some such name as Fight-the-Good-Fight-of-Faith, yea, verily?"

Sir Blaise talked with the drawling whine which he assumed to be the familiar intonation of all Puritan speech. Like many another humorless fellow, he prided himself upon a gift of mimicry signally denied to him. Even Brilliana's detestation of the Puritan party could not compel her to admire her neighbor's performance. Evander's face showed no sign of recognition of Sir Blaise's impertinence as he answered:

"No, truly, but I have heard some talk of a swaggering braggart, prodigal in valiant promise, but very huckster in a pitiful performance; in a word, a clown whose attempt to ape the courtier has never veiled the clod."

Brilliana found it hard to restrain her laughter as she watched the varying shades of fury float over Sir Blaise's broad face at each successive clause of Evander's disdainful indictment. Yet she was sadly vexed to think that her side commanded so poor a champion. Sir Blaise tried to speak, gasped out a furious "Sir!" then his passion choked him, and he gobbled, inarticulate and grotesque. Evander went composedly on:

"He is rated a King's man, and would serve his master well if much tippling of healths and clearing of trenchers were yeoman service in a time of war. But his sword sleeps in its sheath."

"Now, by St. George--" Sir Blaise yelled, raising his clinched fists. Brilliana feared at one moment that he would strike her prisoner in the face; feared in the next that he would fall at her feet dead of an apoplexy. She sailed between the antagonists and addressed Evander.

"Serious sir, will it dash you to learn that you are speaking to Sir Blaise Mickleton?"

Evander's countenance showed no sign either of surprise or of dismay. Sir Blaise, still turkey-red, managed to gulp down his choler sufficiently to utter some syllables.

"I am that knight," he gasped; then, turning to Brilliana, he whispered behind his hand, "Mark now how this bear will climb down."

Brilliana, watching Evander, was not confident of apologies. Her prisoner made a slight inclination of the head towards Sir Blaise in acknowledgment of the fact of Brilliana's presentation, and said, very calmly:

"Why, then, sir, such a jury as your world has empanelled have misread you, for if they summed your flaws aptly in their report of you, they clapped this rider on their staggering verdict, that Sir Blaise Mickleton did, at his worst, do his best to play the gentleman."

Smiles of satisfaction rippled over Sir Blaise's face. He did not follow the drift of Evander's fluency but took it for compliment.

"Handsomely apologized, i' faith," he beamed to Brilliana. Brilliana laughed in his face.

"Why, poor man, he flouts you worse than ever," she whispered.

Sir Blaise knitted puzzled brows while Evander, having made the effective pause, continued, suavely:

"In the which judgment they erred, for he does not merit so creditable a praise. Sure they can never have seen him who couple in any way the name of Sir Blaise Mickleton with the title of gentleman."

Even Sir Blaise's dulness could not misinterpret Evander's meaning, and rage resumed its sway.

"You crow! You kite!" he fumed. His wrath could find no more words, but he made a stride towards Evander, menacing. Brilliana stepped dexterously between the two. As she told Tiffany later, she felt as if she were gliding between fire and ice.

"One side of me was frozen, and the other done to a crisp." She lifted her hand commandingly.

"We will have no bickering here," she protested. Evander paid her a salutation, and, moving a little aside, resumed his book. He would not retire while Sir Blaise was in presence, but he guessed that the lady wished for speech with her friend. Sir Blaise did not find her words consolatory, though she affected consolation.

"The bear licks with a rough tongue," she whispered. Sir Blaise slapped his palms together.

"You shall see me ring him, you shall see me bait him, if you will but leave us."

"How shall I see if I leave?" Brilliana asked, provokingly. "But 'tis no matter."

As she spoke she thought of Halfman, and a merry scheme danced in her head.

"Gentles, I must leave you," she cried, with a pretty little reverence that included both men. Then in a moment she had slipped out of the pleasaunce and was running down the avenue. In the house she found Halfman. "Quick!" she cried, breathlessly. "Sir Blaise and Mr. Cloud are wrangling yonder like dogs over a bone."

"Do you wish me to keep the peace between them?" Halfman questioned. Brilliana did not exactly know what she wished. She was fretted at the poor show a King's man had made before a Puritan; if Sir Blaise could do something to humble the Puritan it might not be wholly amiss. So much Halfman gathered from her jerky scraps of sentences; also, that on no account must the disputants be permitted to come to swords. Halfman nodded, caught up a staff, and ran full tilt to the pleasaunce. The moment his back was turned Brilliana, instead of remaining in the house, came out again, doubled on her course, and dodging among the hedges found herself peeping unseen upon the enclosure she had just quitted and the brawl at its height.