George Cochrane Hazelton

Arrest him yourself!

The King stood at the door, thoughtfully reflecting on the temper of the departing Duchess. She was a maid of honour and, more than that, an emissary from his brother Louis of France. Gossip said he loved her, but it was not true, though he liked her company exceeding well when the mood suited. He regretted only the evening’s incident, with the harsher feeling it was sure to engender.

Nell stood by the fireplace, muttering French phrases in humorous imitation of her grace. Observing the King’s preoccupation, she tossed a serviette merrily at his head.

This brought his Majesty to himself again. He turned, and laughed as he saw her; for his brain and heart delighted in her merry-making. He loved her.

“What means this vile French?” she asked, with delicious suggestion of the shrug, accent and manner of her vanquished rival.

“The Duchess means,” explained the King, “that she gives a royal ball–”

“And invites me?” broke in Nell, quickly, placing her elbows upon a cask and looking over it impishly at Charles.

“And invites you not” said the King, “and so outwits you.”

“By her porters’ wits and not her own,” retorted Nell.

She threw herself into a chair and became oblivious for the moment of her surroundings.

“The French hussy! So she gives a ball?” she thought. “Well, well, I’ll be there! I’ll teach her much. Oh, I’ll be pretty, too, aye, very pretty. No fear yet of rivalry or harm for England.”

Charles watched her amusedly, earnestly, lovingly. The vixen had fallen unconsciously into imitating again the Duchess’s foreign ways, as an accompaniment even for her thoughts.

“Sans doute, we shall, madame” Nell muttered audibly, with much gesticulating and a mocking accent. “À mon bal! Pas adieu, mais au revoir.”

The King came closer.

“Are you ill,” he asked, “that you do mutter so and wildly act?”

“I was only thinking that, if I were a man,” she said, turning toward him playfully, “I would love your Duchess to devotion. Her wit is so original, her repartee so sturdy. Your Majesty’s taste in horses–and some women–is excellent.”

She crossed the room gaily and threw herself laughing upon the bench. The King followed her.

“Heaven help the being, naughty Nell,” he said, “who offends thy merry tongue; but I love thee for it.” He sat down beside her in earnest adoration, then caught her lovingly in his arms.

“Love me?” sighed Nell, scarce mindful of the embrace. “Ah, Sire, I am but a plaything for the King at best, a caprice, a fancy–naught else.”

“Nay, sweet,” said Charles, “you have not read this heart.”“I have read it too deeply,” replied Nell, with much meaning in her voice. “It is this one to-day, that one to-morrow, with King Charles. Ah, Sire, your love for the poor player-girl is summed up in three little words: ‘I amuse you!’”

“Amuse me!” exclaimed Charles, thoughtfully. “Hark ye, Nell! States may marry us; they cannot make us love. Ye Gods, the humblest peasant in my realm is monarch of a heart of his own choice. Would I were such a king!”

“What buxom country lass,” asked Nell, sadly but wistfully, “teaches your fancy to follow the plough, my truant master?”

“You forget: I too,” continued Charles, “have been an outcast, like Orange Nell, seeking a crust and bed.”

He arose and turned away sadly to suppress his emotion. He was not the King of England now: he was a man who had suffered; he was a man among men.

“Forgive me, Sire,” said Nell, tenderly, as a woman only can speak, “if I recall unhappy times.”“Unhappy!” echoed Charles, while Fancy toyed with Recollection. “Nell, in those dark days, I learned to read the human heart. God taught me then the distinction ’twixt friend and enemy. When a misled rabble had dethroned my father, girl, and murdered him before our palace gate, and bequeathed the glorious arts and progressive sciences to religious bigots and fanatics, to trample under foot and burn–when, if a little bird sang overjoyously, they cut out his tongue for daring to be merry–in some lonely home by some stranger’s hearth, a banished prince, called Charles Stuart, oft found an asylum of plenty and repose; and in your eyes, my Nell, I read the self-same, loyal, English heart.”

There was all the sadness of great music in his speech. Nell fell upon her knee, and kissed his hand, reverently.

“My King!” she said; and her voice trembled with passionate love.

He raised her tenderly and kissed her upon the lips.

“My queen,” he said; and his voice too trembled with passionate love.

“And Milton says that Paradise is lost,” whispered Nell. Her head rested on the King’s shoulder. She looked up–the picture of perfect happiness–into his eyes.

“Not while Nell loves Charles,” he said.

“And Charles remembers Nell,” her voice answered, softly.

Meanwhile, the rotund landlord had entered unobserved; and a contrast he made, indeed, to the endearing words of the lovers as at this instant he unceremoniously burst forth in guttural accents with:

“The bill! The bill for supper, sir!”

Nell looked at the King and the King looked at Nell; then both looked at the landlord. The lovers’ sense of humour was boundless. That was their first tie; the second, their hearts.

“The bill!” repeated Nell, smothering a laugh. “Yes, we were just speaking of the bill.”

“How opportune!” exclaimed Charles, taking the cue. “We feared you would forget it, sirrah.”

“See that it is right,” ejaculated Nell.

The King glanced at the bill indifferently, but still could not fail to see “3 chickens” in unschooled hand. His eyes twinkled and he glanced at the landlord, but the latter avoided his look with a pretence of innocence.

“Gad,” said Charles, with a swagger, “what are a few extra shillings to Parliament? Here, my man.” He placed a hand in a pocket, but found it empty. “No; it is in the other pocket.” He placed his hand in another, only to find it also empty. Then he went through the remaining pockets, one by one, turning them each out for inspection–his face assuming an air of mirthful hopelessness as he proceeded. He had changed his garb for a merry lark, but had neglected to change his purse. “Devil on’t, I–have–forgotten–Odsfish, where is my treasurer?” he exclaimed at last.

“Your treasurer!” shrieked the landlord, who had watched Charles’s search, with twitching eyes. “Want your treasurer, do ye? Constable Swallow’ll find him for ye. Constable Swallow! I knew you were a rascal, by your face.”

Charles laughed.

This exasperated the landlord still further. He began to flutter about the room aimlessly, bill in hand. He presented it to Charles and he presented it to Nell, who would have none of it; while at intervals he called loudly for the constable.

“Peace, my man,” entreated Nell; “be still for mercy’s sake.”

“Good lack, my lady,” pleaded the landlord, in despair, “good lack, but you would not see a poor man robbed by a vagabond, would ye? Constable Swallow!”

The situation was growing serious indeed. The King was mirthful still, but Nell was fearful.

“Nell, have you no money to stop this heathen’s mouth?” he finally ejaculated, as he caught up his bonnet and tossed it jauntily upon his head.

“Not a farthing,” replied she, sharply. “I was invited to sup, not pay the bill.”“If the King knew this rascal,” yelled the landlord at the top of his voice, pointing to Charles, “he would be behind the bars long ago.”

This was too much for his Majesty, who broke into the merriest of laughs.

“Verily, I believe you,” he admitted. Then he fell to laughing again, almost rolling off the bench in his glee.

“Master Constable,” wildly repeated the landlord, at the kitchen-door. “Let my new wife alone; they are making off with the house.”

Nell was filled with consternation.

“He’ll raise the neighbourhood, Sire,” she whispered to Charles. “Have you no money to stop this heathen’s mouth?”

“Not even holes in my pockets,” calmly replied the Merry Monarch.

“Odsfish, what company am I got into!” sighed Nell. She ran to the landlord and seized his arm in her endeavour to quiet him.

The landlord, however, was beside himself. He stood at the kitchen-door gesticulating ferociously and still shouting at the top of his voice: “Constable Swallow! Help, help; thieves; Constable Swallow!”

Swallow staggered into the room with all his dignity aboard. Tankard in hand, he made a dive for the table, and catching it firmly, surveyed the scene.

Nell turned to her lover for protection.

“Murder, hic!” ejaculated the constable. “Thieves! What’s the row?–Hic!”

“Arrest this blackguard,” commanded the landlord, nervously, “this perfiler of honest men.”

“Arrest!–You drunken idiot!” indignantly exclaimed Charles; and his sword cut the air before the constable’s eyes.

Nell seized his arm. Her woman’s intuition showed her the better course.

“You will raise a nest of them,” she whispered. “You need your wits, Sire; not your sword.”

“Nay; come on, I say,” cried Charles, fearlessly. “We’ll see what his Majesty’s constables are made of.”

“You rogue–Posse!” exclaimed Swallow, starting boldly for the King, then making a brilliant retreat, calling loudly for help, as the rapier tickled him in the ribs.

“You ruffian–Posse!” he continued to call, alternately, first to one and then to the other; for his fear paralyzed all but his tongue. “You outlaw–Posse commi-ti-titous–hic!”

Buzzard also now entered from his warm nest in the kitchen, so intoxicated that he vented his enthusiasm in song, which in this case seemed apt:

“Another champion of the King’s law!” ejaculated Charles, not without a shadow of contempt in his voice, once more assuming an attitude of defence.

“Oh, Charles!” pleaded Nell, again catching his arm.

“Posse, arrest that vagabond,” commanded the constable, from a point of safety behind the table.

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the obedient Buzzard. “On what charge–hic?”“He’s a law-breaker and a robber!” yelled the watchful landlord.

“He called the law a drunken idiot. Hic–hic!” woefully wailed Swallow. “Odsbud, that’s treason! Arrest him, posse–hic!”

“Knave, I arrest–hic!” asserted Buzzard.

The posse started boldly enough for his game, but was suddenly brought to a stand-still in his reeling course by the sharp point of the rapier playing about his legs. He made several indignant efforts to overcome the obstacle. The point of the blade was none too gentle with him, even as he beat a retreat; and his enthusiasm waned.

“Arrest him yourself–hic!” he exclaimed.

Swallow’s face grew red with rage. To have his orders disobeyed fired him with much more indignation of soul than the escape of the ruffian, who was simply defrauding the landlord of a dinner. He turned hotly upon the insubordinate posse, crying:

“I’ll arrest you, you Buzzard–hic!”“I’ll arrest you, you Swallow–hic!” with equal dignity retorted Buzzard.

“I’m his Majesty’s constable–hic!” hissed Swallow, from lips charged with air, bellows-like.

“I’m his Majesty’s posse–hic!” hissed Buzzard in reply.

The two drunken representatives of the law seized each other angrily. The landlord, in despair, endeavoured hopelessly to separate them.

“A wrangle of the generals,” laughed Charles. “Now is our time.” He looked about quickly for an exit.

“Body o’ me! The vagabonds’ll escape,” shouted the landlord.

“Fly, fly!” said Nell. “This way, Charles.”

She ran hastily toward the steps leading to the entry-way; the King assisted her.

“Stop, thief! Stop, thief!” screamed the landlord. “The bill! The bill!”

“Send it to the Duchess!” replied Nell, gaily, as she and the Merry Monarch darted into the night.The landlord turned in despair, to find the drunken champions of the King’s law in a struggling heap upon the floor. He raised his foot and took out vengeance where vengeance could be found.