FROM this time forth, as far as it was possible, Gervase and Anne kept to the woods and the fields. For several weeks they yielded themselves to a free life in the open. Drenched by the rains, combed by the winds, baked by the sun, they soon became as brown as berries.
All day would they wander hand in hand. But this was a state of things that could not last. A clear conviction had grown up in the heart of Gervase that a term had been set to his days. At any moment he might be taken. Therefore would he have his taste of life.
He welcomed nature in all her moods. He basked in her sunlight, he turned his face to her winds, he rejoiced when her sudden plumps of rain drenched him to the skin. And the brave thing, ever beside him, to whom he owed the life which was still his, she too in her courage and devotion was in a mood of highest fortitude.
Come what might, they would live their hour. Already Anne had made a vow that when the call came to Gervase she would obey it too. When that dread hour came in which they could no longer put off their captors they were resolved to die together. Soon or late a tragic fate must overtake them. But in the meantime let them taste of life in its abundance, let them rejoice in the ever-mounting passion of their love.
Often a barn or a byre sufficed for their night’s lodging, but they seldom lacked food. Even in the most rural places Gervase’s skill upon the flute, blended occasionally with the fresh and charming voice of Anne, hardly ever failed to bring a few pence which served to buy them a meal.
It was a good life and yet a very hard one. They dared not venture into the larger places where pence might have been more plentiful. Thus for the most part the fare was coarse and scanty, and often were their bones a mass of aches from the unkindness of their couches. They were tanned like gypsies, fine-drawn as greyhounds; and all too soon their clothes began to display holes and tatters in spite of the care with which they tended them.
Small wonder was it that as the days passed this severe life of the road began to pall. Greatly as they exulted in their freedom, they began to long intensely for gentler fare. Besides, they were inclined to view their perils more lightly. Nerved by hardship, very hungry and also grown a little desperate after a long succession of most uncomfortable days and nights, they found themselves on a glorious morning in the streets of the famous town of Oxford. And here a thing befell that was to change the current of their lives.
It was hardly more than eight o’clock by the time they came into the Cornmarket, where stood the Crown Tavern, which was the principal inn in the city. The season was June, and young as was the day the sun was already hot in a sky that was without a cloud.
A man dressed neatly in a doublet of black velvet, and with a short cock’s feather in his hat, sat on a bench in the sun by the tavern door. On his knees was a mass of papers which he was studying intently. The expression upon his face was a little dubious at times, and more than a little pensive at others. Now and again as he read he indulged in a trick of brushing back his rather long hair with the palm of his hand, and to this he had free recourse when he came to a passage in the close-written folio that particularly engaged his attention.
As the strains of Gervase’s flute, mingled with the notes of Anne’s rather plaintive treble, caught the man’s ear he paused suddenly in his task. With an eager, inquiring eye that was singularly searching he looked up; and as it fell upon the pair of vagabonds who were coming slowly across the Cornmarket toward where he sat, there was something in their aspect which seemed to arouse his curiosity. At any rate he laid his papers down on the bench, and regarded the musician and the singer with an air of great candor and interest.
It may have been that the performance on the flute struck him as possessing a merit beyond the common, or it may have been that the sweetly plaintive voice touched a chord in his heart, or again it may have been that some subtle quality in the aspect of these ragged robins spoke to him. For at least his scrutiny was grave, direct, very regardful. It was as if he saw, beyond the tawny skins, the unkempt locks, the tattered clothes, an underlying strangeness as of something far other than was as yet revealed.
So oddly was this man taken by the appearance of these wanderers that when they halted, rather timidly as it seemed, some twenty paces from where he sat, he was fain to beckon to them to come nearer. Yes, here were youth and grace indeed, and beneath their tan was an unmistakable beauty. Very slowly and very gravely the man on the tavern bench looked them up and down from top to toe.
“Playing for a breakfast, young sir?” he said in a tone of amused friendliness, when at last this scrutiny was at an end.
“Yes, sir, we be,” said Gervase.
Of late the young man had affected a kind of Doric in his speech, the better to accord with an appearance that grew more and more rustical. But as soon as the man heard the tone of his voice a smile played furtively upon his lips.
Again were those observing eyes directed upon Gervase and Anne. There was neither unkindness nor impertinence in that whimsical gaze. It was hardly more than the sympathetic curiosity of a subtle mind in the presence of a mystery it is tempted to solve. But to Gervase at least it brought a sense of discomfort. The man’s whole aspect made him feel that here was a mental power, a faculty of divination far beyond the common.
“My friend,” said the man, with a disarming air of courtesy, “if I may say so, you perform so choicely upon the flute that you should seldom go wanting a meal.”
“Ah, sir, we lack one sometimes,” said Gervase.
“There should be no occasion to do so this morning at least. Persons of taste abound in this old university town.”
“That is good news, sir,” said Gervase guardedly.
“And had I been bred at this ancient seat of learning I myself might have claimed to be of their number.” So soft and gentle was the tone of the man’s voice that Gervase was set more than ever upon his guard.
The young man tried to show by a gesture that the conversation was being carried above the plane on which his bucolic wits were accustomed to move. But unhappily its very politeness defeated the object in view. No rustic since the world began had ever been able to convey a deprecation so delicate in a manner so urbane.
The man could not forbear to be amused. “Well, sir,” said he, “let me make myself clearer. May I, as a humble lover of the arts, offer a breakfast to you and your friend in order to celebrate your genius upon the flute?”
“Certainly, sir, you may,” said Gervase, with grateful alacrity, and casting all prudence to the wind.
The man bowed as if aware that an honor had been done him. “Is there any particular dish, sir, you crave for your breakfast?”
Instead of replying to the question Gervase looked at Anne, as if he desired that in a matter of such importance hers should be the responsibility of choosing.
Quick to follow the glance, as he was quick to follow all things, the man was fain to take it for his guide. “What do you desire for your breakfast, young sir?” he said to Anne.
“A dish of sweetbreads, if it please you,” said Anne, without an instant’s hesitation.
“The devil you do!” The man broke into a cry of laughter. “You eat delicate, young sir. Is a dish of sweetbreads your usual fare of a morning?”
“No,” said Anne. “But you asked me what I would like for my breakfast.”
“Well, young gypsy, you shall have ’em, confound me if you shall not, if good Mistress Davenant can rise to such fare. I will go and inquire.”
The man gathered his papers, rose from the bench and entered the tavern.
Anne and Gervase were left on the threshold to speculate, perhaps a little dubiously, upon this new turn in their fortunes. Gervase was already spurring his memory to recall who this man might be. He had the clearest recollection of having seen him before. But where he had seen him and in what circumstances he could not remember just then. Still, he felt not the least distrust of him. The countenance was subtle enough, and wholly unlike that of any other man, but it had also a frankness, a candor, a large geniality which wholly forbade the idea of treachery.
Soon the man returned with a roguish light in his eye and the assurance that Mistress Davenant would furnish a dish of sweetbreads in twenty minutes.
These were glad tidings. Gervase rendered his thanks in his best Doric and begged to be allowed the use of the pump in the courtyard of the inn. Surely such a noble repast called for some amenity on the part of those who would yield to its delights.