“’Faith, I will live so long as I may, that’s the certain of it!” Henry V.

There was a rapid, heavy tread in the passage without. Marryott hastily rose from his kneeling posture, turned, and took a step toward the door. Kit Bottle entered.

“All’s ready for going, sir,” said the captain.

“We shall not go,” said Marryott, quietly, with as much composure as he could command. “We shall stay here the rest of the night; I know not how much longer.”

“Stay here?” muttered Kit, staring at Marryott, with amazed eyes.

“Ay. Let Anthony take the horses back to stable. And ” Marryott felt that so unaccountable a change of plan required some further orders, as if there were a politic reason behind it; moreover. Kit’s astonished look seemed to call for them. So, begotten of Hal’s embarrassment in the gaze of his lieutenant, came a thought, and in its train a hope. “And then we’ll make this house ready for a siege,” he added. “Go below; send hither the boy Francis, and Tom Cobble, and let all the others await my commands in the hall.”

Kit disappeared. He saw Marryott’s plan as soon as it had taken shape. The word “siege” was key sufficient for the captain. Ten days were to be gained for Sir Valentine. Four were past. Four more would be required for a return to Fleetwood house in this weather and over snowbound roads. Two days thus remained to be consumed. If Foxby Hall could be held for two days against probable attempts of Roger Barnet to enter it, and without his discovering Hal’s trick, the mission would be accomplished.

But after that, what of the lives of Master Marryott and his men? It was not yet time to face that question. The immediate problem was, to gain the two days.

Mistress Hazlehurst, who believed Marryott to be the real Fleetwood, and knew nothing of the matter of the ten days, saw in this prospective siege the certainty of the supposed knight’s eventual capture; saw, that is to say, the accomplishment of the vengeful purpose for which she had beset his flight. She lay motionless on her improvised couch, her feelings locked within her.

“And now, mistress,” said Marryott, turning to her, and speaking in a low voice, “what may be done for thy comfort? I have no skill to deal with ailments. It may be that one of the men below ”

“Nay,” she answered, drowsily; “there is naught can do me any good but rest. My ailment is, that my body is wearied to the edge of death. The one cure is sleep.”

“Shall I support thee to thy bed?”

“An thou wilt.”

When he had borne her into her chamber, and laid her on the bed, she appeared to sink at once into that repose whence she might renew her waned vitality. He gazed for a moment upon her face, daring not to disturb her tranquillity with another caress. Hearing steps approaching in the passage beyond the outer room, he went softly from the chamber and met Francis and Tom.

“Your mistress sleeps,” said he to the page. “Leave her door ajar, that you may hear if she be ailing or in want of aught. Go not for an instant out of hearing of her; and if there be need, let Tom bring word to me in the hall.”

He then hurried down to where the men were assembled with Kit Bottle. The fire had been replenished, and some torches lighted. Marryott, seeing that Anthony and Bunch were still absent with the horses, awaited their return before addressing his company. In this interim, he strode up and down before the fire, forming in his mind the speech he would make. When the two came in, and had barred the door after them, Marryott said:

“My stout fellows, four miles yonder, or maybe less now, are a score of horsemen. Most like, they are either Master Rumney and a reinforced gang, or a pursuivant’s troop from London with a warrant to arrest me. An it be Rumney, hounding us for revenge and other purposes, we can best offset his odds by fighting him from this house; and he must in the end give up and depart, lest the tumult bring sheriff’s men upon him when the weather betters. But if it be the pursuivant, he will persist till he take me or starve me out, an I do not some way contrive to give him the slip. Now if he take you aiding me, ’tis like to bring ropes about your necks forthwith! So I give you, this moment, opportunity of leaving me; knowing well there is not one so vile among you to use this liberty in bearing information of me to shire officers, which indeed they would find pretext for ignoring, in such weather for staying indoors. Stand forth, therefore, ye that wish to go hence; for once we fortify the house, none may leave it without my order, on pain of pistol-shot.”

Whether from attachment to Marryott, or fear of falling into Rumney’s hands, or a sense of present comfort and security in this stout mansion, every man stood motionless.

“Brave hearts, I thank you!” cried Marryott, after sufficient pause. “And mayhap I can save you, though I be taken myself. But now for swift work! Captain Bottle, an there be any loose timber about, let Oliver show it you, and let the men bear it into the house. If there be none such, take what fire-logs there be, and cut timbers from the outhouses with what tools ye may come upon. With these, and with chests and such, ye will brace and bar the doors and all windows within reach of men upon the ground. As soon as Oliver has shown where timber may be found, let him point out all such openings to Captain Bottle. And meanwhile, till timber is here collected, I and the captain will begin the barricading with furniture. As the timbers are brought in, we shall use them, and when enough be fetched, every man shall join us in the fortifying.”

“There be posts and beams, piled ’neath a pentice-roof by the stables; and fire-wood a-plenty,” said Oliver Bunch.

“Good! And which door is best to carry it in through?”

“There is an old door from the kitchen wing to the stables; ’tis kept ever bolted and barred.”

“Unbolt and unbar it, then! And make fast, instead, the outer stable doors, when ye have brought in the timber. Thus we may secure the horses, which may now rest unsaddled; for here we must abide two days, at least. To it now, my staunch knaves! And leave all your weapons on these settles, and your powder and ball, that I may see how we are provided for this siege. I thank God for this storm, Kit; it must limit our besiegers to the enemies we wot of. No lazy rustics will poke nose into the business while such weather endures.”

Leaving the wounded to rely solely upon repose, the men set about doing as they were ordered. Marryott and Kit took account of the weapons and ammunition. There were, besides the swords and daggers, a number of pistols, two arquebuses, a musket, and a petronel. Of these firearms, the pistols alone had wheel-locks, which indeed were still so costly that as yet they were to be found mainly in weapons for use on horseback, the longer arms, for service afoot, being fitted with the awkward and slow-working match-locks. There was good store of ammunition.

Marryott and the captain thereupon threw off their doublets, and began barricading, starting at the main door, and using first the chests, trestles, and like material found in the adjacent rooms. When the long and thin pieces of timber began to come in upon the shoulders of the men, Hal caused them to be pointed at one end, that they might be used as braces, the blunt ends placed against doors and shutters, the sharp ends sunk into notches made in the floor. Pieces of various size and shape were utilized to bar, brace, or block up doors and windows in diverse ways. Narrow openings were left at some windows, through which, upon making corresponding openings in the glass, men might fire out at any one attempting to force entrance.

When the defences in the house were well begun. Hal sent Kit to superintend those of the stable, which, as has been shown, communicated directly with a wing of the mansion.

These occupations kept Marryott and his men busy for several hours. When they were completed, and Foxby Hall seemed closed tight against the ingress of a regiment, Hal, previously drained of strength by his long terms of sleeplessness, was ready to drop. But he dragged himself up-stairs to see how his prisoner fared.

Francis and Tom were asleep in the outer room. At Anne’s half open door Marryott could hear from within the chamber the regular breathing of peaceful slumber. He went down to the hall again, and found the men, with the exception of Anthony, stretched upon the stale rushes. The Puritan was sitting by the fire.

“I shall sleep awhile, Anthony,” said Hal. “I see no use in setting a watch, now that we need keep no more between us and these men than the walls of this house. If they come hither, their noise will wake us ere they can break in.”

“Come hither they will, ’tis sure,” said Kit Bottle, from his place on the floor, “if they be indeed Rumney’s men or Barnet’s. They will have heard tell of this empty house ere they come to it, and they will stop to examine. Or, if they pass first without stopping, and find no note of our going further north, they will come back with keen noses. When they hear horses snorting and pawing in the stables, horses stabled at an empty house, look you! they’ll make quick work of smelling us out!”

“Well, ’faith, we are ready for them,” said Hal, and sank to a reclining attitude near the fire.

“Ay, in good sooth,” said Kit; “fortified, armed, and vict No, by the devil’s horns, victualled we are not!”

And the worthy soldier sprang to his feet, the picture of dismay.

“Go to!” cried Hal, rising almost as quickly. “Where are the provisions Anthony brought yestreen?”

“In those bellies and mine, and a murrain on such appetites!” was Kit’s self-reproachful answer. “God’s death, we’re like to make up for a deal of Lent-breaking, these next two days!”

Hal became at once hungry, at the very prospect of a two days’ complete fast. He wondered how his men would endure it; and he thought of the lady up-stairs. Already languishing from sheer fatigue, must she now famish also?

“We must get a supply of food!” said Marryott, decidedly.

“Where?” queried the captain.

“Where we got yesterday’s. Some one must go, at once!”

“I will go,” said Anthony. “I know the way.”

“Rouse the innkeeper, at any cost,” replied Hal, handing out a gold piece from the pocket of his hose.

“’Tis near dawn,” returned the Puritan. “He will be up when I arrive there.”

“Keep an eye open for our enemies.”

“If I find them surrounding you, when I return,” replied the Puritan, calmly, “I will make a dash for one of the doors. By watching from an upper window, you may know when to open it for me.”

“And when you are within, it can be barred again,” said Hal. “Best make for the same door by which you now go forth; ’twill save undoing more than one of our barricades.”

“Let it be the lesser stable door, then,” suggested Captain Bottle, “as he will go by horse. Moreover, if the enemy should force a way into the stables, there’s yet the door betwixt the stables and the house, that we could close against them.”

The world was paling into a snowy dawn, as Anthony rode forth from the stable a few minutes later. Meanwhile, having aroused the useful Bunch, Hal had caused vessels to be filled with water from a well, and placed in a room off the hall. Kit then barred the stable door, but did not replace the braces and obstructions that had been removed to allow egress. He then volunteered to watch, in an up-stairs chamber of the kitchen wing, for Anthony’s return. Assenting to this offer, Marryott returned to the hall, and lay down near Oliver, who was already asleep.

An hour later Hal was awakened by a call from Captain Bottle, who stood at the head of the stairs.

“Is Anthony coming back?” Marryott asked, scrambling to his feet.

“He is not in sight yet,” was the reply. “And you’d best send Oliver to watch in my place. I can be of better use otherwise, now.”

“What mean’st thou?”

“The horsemen are without. From yon room I saw them riding around the house and staring up at the windows.”

“Which party is it?” said Hal, quickly, repressing his excitement.

“Rumney’s.”

Hal’s brow darkened a little. He would rather it had been Barnet’s, for then he should have been free of all doubt whether the pursuivant had indeed clung to the false chase.

At that instant a loud thud was heard on the front door, as if a piece of timber were being used as a battering-ram.

“You are right; I will send Oliver to watch,” said Marryott.

He did so, with full instructions; and then roused all the able-bodied men. He distributed the firearms and ammunition; assigned each man to the guardianship of some particular door and its neighboring windows; gave orders for an alarm, and a concentration of force, at any point where the enemy might win entrance; left Kit in charge of the hall, at whose door there was present threat of attack, and hastened up-stairs to a gallery where an oriel window projected over that door. He looked down into the quadrangle. It was now broad daylight; snow was still falling.

Whether from a desire to avail himself of the bad weather for an attempt to plunder this deserted house, or from a suspicion that Oliver Bunch might have been both able and willing to open the mansion to the travellers, or from other reasons for thinking that they might be here, Captain Rumney had indeed led his troop into the grounds, made a preliminary circuit of the mansion, heard the horses in the stables, found all doors fast, detected signs of barricades in the windows, dismounted his company in the court, and caused a number of his men to assault the door with the fallen bough of a tree.