Out on Any Limb: An Elizabethan Adventure

CHAPTER I

IT WAS ten weeks ago — in my vanished youth, before I met Sangrel — that I first saw Giles. At old Venner’s place it was, and I was just weighing the chances of luring his daughter out to the garden for a kiss and pot luck when this fellow arrived to accept hospitality for the night. Personally I was not impressed with him, but young girls are so apt to confuse tallness and blondness with good looks. Not that I held Bess Venner in particular esteem, but she was the only girl present; at that time I still thought every woman’s admiration was my right, and I had got there first.

Bess immediately vindicated my low opinion of female judgment by openly and blatantly flirting with this oaf, and I had to fight for any wisp of her attention I won thereafter. I would have gladly retired but for my pride. As it was I stayed with them, like a dog growling over a bone it doesn’t especially want anyhow. But I had the comforting thought that if he had spoiled my game I could at least be sure that his conduct wouldn’t exceed the bounds of propriety.

It was the only comforting thing I did have for that portion of the evening. I tried to make up for the fact that my hangdog stars had made me slight, dark and lantern-jawed by displaying my wit. It seemed to me that some few of my remarks were sharp and brilliant, but my joy in giving birth to them was dulled by the recognition that they went entirely over Bess’ not unsightly head.

As to Giles, however, the case was different. He caught my quips, most of which were indirectly shot at him in the first place, and matched them. Once or twice, I grudgingly conceded, he overmatched them, and my temper, already rubbed warm by injured conceit, began to smolder. He on his part was peevish for a different reason. He had the inside track with a girl who seemed interested enough in him to indulge in a little offhand love-making; but there I was. In consequence his anger, too, began to rise, and our remarks graduated into all but outright insults.

That was the situation when old Venner waked from his after-supper wine doze, greeted Giles warmly, sent Bess off to bed, and asked us to join him in a good-night bottle. Though a doddlepate, he is a nice old doddlepate, and I gladly accepted. I was too generally roiled even to consider sleep, and cooling off over a glass or two seemed a wise procedure. Giles accepted also, but though I by then thoroughly disliked the fellow I decided not to pay him any more attention than civility to our host demanded. He adopted the same attitude, and for the first minute so we sat smiling on the sack, ignoring each other, and bearing with old Venner’s well-meant maunderings.

Here’s to you Giles; you, too, Ingram. The old woodcock beamed at us in turn. I didn’t know you two had the honor of each other’s acquaintance.

I couldn’t resist that opening. Honor is where you find it, I said, knowing he wouldn’t analyze the remark but that Giles would. Our meeting here was purely accidental, I assure you.

Well, well. Our host drained his glass and filled it again with muzzy happiness. I’m honored and this house is honored that you should have the honor of meeting here. Let’s drink to it.

We did, though sparingly with the exception of himself. You can’t always be lucky, Giles said.

That’s right, Venner agreed heartily. You can’t always be so lucky. Glad you two like each other. Knew the fathers of both of you as a lad, and it seems to me they knew each other. Maybe not, though, maybe not.

I coughed. It sounds probable. I’ve heard my uncle comment on the kind of company Father used to keep.

His round, innocent face grew more shiny than ever as sentiment abetted good nature and sack. Naturally he would. When you get to be our age you like to talk about the good old days. To illustrate he recounted some incident, long in the telling, in the course of which he had been associated with both our fathers. I contrived to laugh every now and then while thinking of something else and keeping my glass full.

No, I’m wrong, old Venner concluded his narrative. It wasn’t Naunton and Applegarth at all. It was two fellows named — but that wouldn’t mean anything to you. The bottle was empty, and he roared for another. Well, anyhow that was the sort of thing we used to do, and I bet you two do the same.

Not having listened, I was vague on this point. Apparently Giles was also. You would know, he remarked.

Of course, I would! The old dotterel was delighted. The habits of young men don’t change much from one generation to the next — and a good thing for England. The Queen and the country don’t have to worry much while she — no, not she, Od’s codpiece! she’s a virgin — but while the other women keep on producing such fine, young hellions as you.

I coughed again, modestly this time. I had never been as much of a hellion as I might on occasion have wished, in fact I didn’t seem to be one of those chosen fellows to whom rowdily exciting things were always happening. But I certainly wasn’t going to admit as much, least of all before Giles. Oh, I bet we have nothing to the times you used to have.

It was the right touch, and he filled all glasses once more. Well, I’ve had my days, he laughed, and a lot of the best of them were where you’re going now. He turned to Giles. Are you for London, too?

I’m heading south, Giles said reluctantly, but not for London — this trip.

I turned to him, the first time I had done so since sitting at the wine. On your way back to school? I asked casually.

He flushed and to my further joy old Venner aggravated the innuendo. Oh no, he couldn’t be going to school. It’s out of term.

I finished school some years ago, Giles said icily.

The sack was reaching our host again, and he wasn’t following things too closely. Then why go back there, my boy? Now that the plague scare is dying you should be going to London like Ingram here. It’s the only place for young blood to get a proper education. I suppose you’ll be at court, Ingram?

I might have answered in the affirmative, but I was afraid he’d ask who I knew there. As it happened I wasn’t going to London at all. That had merely seemed a good thing to say to impress Mistress Venner. Oh, I have letters to people, I said, leaving them to interpret that as they would.

Probably letters to a butcher, Giles hazarded, asking him to take you on as an apprentice.

While I was furiously seeking for an adequate retort to this first openly expressed insult old Venner spoke up with his customary irrelevancy. Apparently his fuddled mind had caught only one word of Giles’ last remark, but that word led to a field of discussion on which he considered himself an authority. If you want to see a butcher, he said urgently, you don’t want to go to London. A waste of time. The best beef in all the world eats grass right here in Westmoreland. And you know who raises the finest beef of anybody in the shire?

I was still brooding over my latest wrong, but Giles perceived the truth. You? he asked.

Right, my boy! You’ve got a great head on you. You must be doing well at that school. Yes, lads, my cattle turn out not only the best meat in the world but the most of it per head. And from now on it’s going to be even better.

I don’t see how it could be, I murmured.

Well, Giles, he said to me, and both Giles and I winced, you wouldn’t see that because you’re not an expert. But I’ll let you both into a secret, because I don’t care if anybody knows it now. I always had the best cows, but though I never admitted it there was a friend of mine had one bull that was a little better than any I had. He paused dramatically. Lads, I’m an honest man, and I thank God I stayed honest; but I’m telling you that I never knew the meaning of the word temptation until I saw that bull.

Neither of us had any comment, but he was now under full sail and needed no encouragement. I tried to buy, but naturally it was no use. Why, you offer a thousand pounds for a bull like that and any man would laugh at you.

I knew of one man sitting right across from him who would have sold all the cattle of Helios Hyperion for half the sum, but I didn’t tell Venner that. Well, he said, I was at my wits’ end what to do about it when providentially my friend died last week.

Acting for once in unison, Giles and I grunted. The old boy slopped wine into all glasses, his face aglow with his good fortune. So I bought that bull from the widow today. That’s why you find me celebrating.

I don’t blame you after a good stroke of business like that, Giles offered.

I’ll wager you won’t blame me after you’ve seen him. Venner shook his head, unable to express the beauty in his mind. I would have shown him to you this afternoon if you hadn’t arrived just before supper, Ingram. But you’ll both see him tomorrow. You’ll get a good look, too.

Yes? I said.

Yes, my boy, he reassured me. I didn’t put him right out in the pasture where it would be hard to get near him; I had him staked out near the barn, so I could watch him and gloat over him for a couple of days. Yes, and I’ll gloat over other cattle raisers when they come around trying to rent his services. You know what I’m going to tell ’em? I thought of it on the way home today. The recollection of his inspiration overwhelmed him, and he wheezed with laughter until the tears came. By way of reminding him that the bottle was empty I made an ostentatiously vain effort to pour, and he recovered enough to shout for an attendant.

I’m going to tell ’em, he said after laughing a little more, that I wouldn’t rent that bull to service Queen Bess herself if she ever gets tired of her damned virginity.

I was a little shocked, and a cautious side-glance at Giles showed me that he was uneasy, too. I couldn’t claim I’d always done everything I might have toward the encouragement of maidenhood. Still everybody knew it was a very fine thing, and the Queen was, after all, the Queen. However, I made some shift at an appreciative chuckle, and old Venner, as usual, noticed nothing amiss.

He rambled on about breeding cattle, nodding betimes, then shaking himself awake, until finally the wine really caught up with him. The upshot left him slouched back in his chair, snoring resoundingly, leaving his guests to find what topics of conversation their antagonism and two bellies full of sack could contrive.

It started when I reached out my hand for the bottle at the same time Giles did. Ceremony called for withdrawal on both our parts accompanied by gestures indicating we were dying for the other fellow to have first crack at refilling. We had no use for ceremony; moreover, we knew the bottle was getting low. Our hands met on the neck and stayed there. Then for the first time in a couple of hours we looked full at each other.

Wait your turn! I ordered brusquely.

It is — he started to say; instead he smiled and hate was suddenly as hot on my hide as sunburn. I don’t have to wait my turn with yearlings like you, he pointed out, and to my mortification he jerked the bottle from my grip.

I lurched out of my chair then, granted inspiration, I sat back, watching like a fox spotting quail. With strained deliberation he poured the wine, toasted me with a smirk and lifted the cup to his lips. It just reached them and no more. My blow sent the cup flying, and the sack down over his clothes.

He reached for me, but I eluded him, and we rose to glare at each other. Pick up that cup, he commanded.

Throughout the encounter I had been fully as much at fault as he, but at the moment it seemed to me that the goddess of justice was applauding my every aggressive move. I will when you learn manners, I replied.

Under the circumstances it was hardly surprising that the effrontery of my declaration stilled him. In a second, however, he was leaning across the table, his face mottled white with cold wrath and red with warm wine. Manners, oyster face?

Yes, spider’s rump; if you know what they are.

Why you witch-sucking moon-calf!

He had struck me as very sizeable when I first saw him, but I was momentarily unawed by bigness. At his last epithet I hitched up my gallygaskins and stepped forward with a swagger that dared him to do his worst. To my chagrin, though, he suddenly folded his arms and looked at me loftily. In addition to calling names, he said, quite as if no insult had crossed his own lips, I suppose you want to tug and wrestle. At my age enemies who don’t like each other are accustomed to fight with weapons. Fighting weapons, he concluded impressively.

And I was impressed, too. I would have given anything if the idea had come to me first. Still at least I would show him that I could take such a situation in stride. Are you challenging me or am I challenging you? I asked by way of proving I was a stickler for the code.

I could see him going back step by step in his mind, and I tried to also; but it was too much of an effort, so I left the decision up to him and whistled a tune to demonstrate my nonchalance.

I’m challenging you, he at last decided. What will it be?

Rapiers, I said.

He snorted. Of course, rapiers! What did you think we were going to fight with — quarterstaffs? But rapiers and what? Rapiers and daggers; rapiers and cloaks?

For an instant I was crushed at my stupidity, but my desperate pride snatched an idea from my mind which made me marvel at my genius. I took it for granted that you’d want to settle things right away, I told him, and so we’d use cloak and lantern. I always fight my duels at night when I can, I added with a gesture implying the countless.

He snapped his fingers in delight at the idea, then his face straightened. It’s all one to me, Master Applegarth, he said with a formal bow. I am at your service.

And I at yours, Master Naunton, I told him with a gravity to match his own. Shall it be for first blood or to the finish?

He started to bow again, then thought better of it and put his hand on the table with classic dignity. Oh, I always like to finish, but that’s still up to you, you know.

To the finish by all means, I said. Will you go first, Master Naunton, or shall I follow you?

The rush candles in the hallway didn’t offer too much light, but we negotiated the great stairway and separated to find our respective rooms. My sword and cape were on the canopied bed where I had thrown them, and after doffing my doublet I belted on the one as I swept the other around me. My impulse was to rejoin my foeman with all possible speed, but a thought delayed me.

Swordplay had been as much a part of my education as Latin, falconry, philosophy, venery, Greek and carrying my drink, but up to that point it had always been an academic exercise. Now I was about to go out and kill my enemy. I had never had a real enemy before, and I rolled the idea around in my mind with satisfaction until it occurred to me that with all the intelligent men in England there must have been others who had wanted to finish Giles. Yet he still survived.

The odds were I was up against a man of considerable experience, wherefore I had better practice. I drew my blade, made a few passes in the semi-darkness, and felt better. Sheathing my weapon again, I resettled my cape with a flourish and swaggered downstairs.

When I re-entered the huge main hall of the manor Giles was already there, one leg thrown over the heavy oak table at which we’d been drinking. Old Venner still slept noisily. We can probably find somebody out in the kitchen who can get us a couple of lanterns, my antagonist suggested.

There was only one servant in evidence, and he wasn’t awake. It was clear that while waiting for his master to announce the close of the evening’s festivities he had been sampling the sack himself. He must have worked at it reasonably hard, too, for it took vigorous shaking to bring him to the point where he could talk.

Have you got any lanterns? I demanded.

Lots of ’em, he replied and closed his eyes again.

Giles kicked his stool from under him, and the fellow collapsed into the corner where he’d been leaning. We want two lanterns, he said. Were going out to look after our horses.

The man’s eyes were really open this time. The horses have been looked after, he said with weary disapproval.

We jerked him to his feet and propped him against the wall. A careful horseman, I quoted didactically, always looks after his own mount.

Giles nodded concurrence. He doesn’t leave their care to drunkards, he said heavily. Not at any time of the night.

The fellow wasn’t concerned by the inference. Rather drink than nurse whorseson horses, he pointed out, and his feet started to slide out from under him.

We caught him just in time. If you want that weasand of yours to swallow any more wine, I said, drawing my rapier and waving it wildly, tell us where a couple of lanterns are. Speak up, cockroach, or swallow this!

This time he was very much concerned, and fright gave him the sobriety to stand alone. Put it up master, he begged, holding one hand over his threatened gullet and pointing toward a cupboard across the room. There’s plenty in there.

Long candles in them? Giles asked.

Yes, master; some of ’em anyhow. He sighed as I sheathed my rapier, then ventured a faint reproach. Why should people take swords out to feed horses? he wondered.

Giles and I smirked at each other. Oh, you never can tell when you’ll meet an enemy, I said. Now come on over and get these lighted for us.

It took some minutes of combined effort to get that accomplished, but eventually the miserable man was allowed to return to his dozing, and we two stepped out into the night. It had been fair earlier in the evening, but now the sky was overcast. I held up my lantern hopefully and peered around. Beyond its radiance, however, I couldn’t see a thing. It’s a nice night for it, I declared.

That’s right, he said. Got any preference as to where we operate?

I pointed at random. Let’s go over there a ways. We can’t do it right by the house here.

Not good manners, he agreed, beginning to stride into the unknown dark.

I kept up with him as best I could, though my boots felt heavy, and the terrain seemed singularly uneven. Twice we collided and excused ourselves with dignity. There was no means of gauging our progress, but after a while we were slogging through deep grass. How about here? I suggested, halting and lifting my lantern.

He copied my gesture, and we blinked around at all we could see — grass spotted with flowers of uncertain identity in the flickering light. A good place, he voiced an expert’s opinion. Fifty paces, turn and flash?

Good, I said. Ready? As he stated that he was, I put my lantern under my cloak and tramped through the dew-soaked timothy, blind as bats are not in the darkness. All went well until almost at the end of my counting I bumped into something hard. After exploring it with my hand I raised my voice to report. Only forty-eight, I shouted, and I’ve run into a barn or something. Shall we go back and start over?

There was a moment of silence before his answer solved the problem. No, I’ll walk two extra and make it even.

Solemnly I counted a slow one-two, then turned and drew my lantern from hiding. I had expected to see his light directly back whence I had come, but for some reason or other it was way over to one side. It was nearer than I had anticipated, too. Concealing my own betraying little beacon again, I bared my sword and stole toward him. An instant later his light disappeared.

I took several more paces then stopped to get my bearings and organize my strategy. In addition to receiving oral instructions from my fencing teacher about this style of fighting I had at one time conned written passages on the subject. The trick was to use the lantern sparingly but cannily, maneuvering the other into striking distance, then either springing at him as he flashed his light at an injudicious time or dazzling him with one’s own just at the attack. I tried to remember whether he had used his right or left hand to drink with most but failing to recall, I decided to act on the probabilities. My plan of campaign would be to lead him to think I was advancing straight toward him whereas in reality I would swing around and take him on his vulnerable left. The scheme seemed so devilish in its ingenuity that I regarded the outcome as settled.

Holding my light continuously in evidence, I went deliberately forward, then flipping my cape over it I cut off sharply. My satisfaction in my stratagem was shortly lessened, though, by the realization that I hadn’t seen Giles’ lantern since the original flashing. Straining my senses as best I could under the circumstances, I stopped to watch for it. My head buzzed and there were crickets, yet those notwithstanding the night managed to be exceptionally silent. Indeed, the world at large was about the emptiest I’d ever remembered finding it.

Giles must be stealing up on me, I nervously reasoned, and it was with difficulty that I restrained myself from trying to find him with my lantern. Eventually the idea that he might be coming up from behind penetrated, and I stuck my chin over my shoulder. Suddenly a light shone at a considerable distance. And while I stared it vanished to reappear even further away.

My first impulse was to shout at him, but that wasn’t the way. I flourished my lantern in sweeping arcs several times, but as this produced no evident results I set out in pursuit. Hurrying stirred the wine in me and made me windless and unhappy in no time. My legs felt lifeless as they churned heavily through the hay, but I plodded on until I finally tripped and sprawled. The dew was finely soothing on my hot face, and I lay there a while, luxuriating.

By the time I had struggled to my feet again and retrieved my lantern from where it lay like a great glowworm in the long, wet grass I had come to several conclusions. I wasn’t angry at Giles any more — I was too tired to be angry, and dueling was too hard work anyhow. All I wanted was to get back to the manor and go to sleep.

Still a man couldn’t go to sleep in the middle of a duel to the finish, least of all an Applegarth. Holding out my light, I looked blearily around for a possible response. Almost immediately there was one, and some of my lassitude fell from me as I perceived how much nearer at hand it was. Even some of my enthusiasm for the project returned with the possibility of action. I dried the hilt of my sword and my sweating right hand and crept forward.

He had the reach of me, I told myself, and the thing to do would be to get him right when I struck. Shoulder-high on me would be breast-high on him, and that was the place. Catch his blade with my cloak, that was the idea, and let him have it until my hilt jammed against his ribs. It was fleshment for my sword or quietus for me, I told myself, and my tired hackles rose gallantly.

Once again he signalled, and I came fully alert. He couldn’t be more than fifteen paces away. I flashed, sidestepped, and stole ahead, all predator. First I caught nothing, then I became distinctly aware of heavy breathing just ahead of me. This was the thing, and the moment had arrived. I crouched and carefully began to move my light from under my cape, all ready to pick out, dazzle, and leap.

One more long, furtive stride I took, then — Here’s for you, Applegarth! Giles cried; and my soul withered with dread and horror. For following his words there was a roar like a mad fiend with a sore throat. It was all conceivable rage, outrage, surprise, pain and vengefulness incorporated in one deafening cry. Nor was that the worst, for the cry was followed by demonic snortings, the trampling of heavy and terrible feet, and strange, metallic clankings.

I didn’t have any specific notions about what was going on; I was only sure that I didn’t want to be near it. At first I couldn’t move, and when I finally got around to retreating I tripped for the second time that night. I was frantically regaining my feet when a dark bulk of vast but uncertain dimensions thundered by me.

The Devil, and he missed! I breathed, sheathing my blade in preparation for a wild dash in the opposite direction. It was then that I heard Giles’ voice, low but passionate with an agony of disgust.

The first time I really use my damned sword, and I draw first blood from the butt end of a lousy bull!

He would have been easy game then, but the duel was over. I stood where I was while I recovered from my fright. By the time I had done so I was very close to sobriety and thinking fast. That bull — an animal of such bulk and with such a capacity for bellowing — must be old Vernier’s pride and joy. It had escaped, and when and if they located it they would find it with a rapier thrust in its rump. And jerking out its tether stake through the medium of a chain attached to a ring in its nose couldn’t have done the beast any good. The more I considered the situation the worse it appeared.

Even if I had any affluence to speak of, which I didn’t, how could anybody pay Venner for the injury to, and possibly the loss of, his darling? Of course, I hadn’t actually done the damage, but I was particeps criminis, and the difference in the degree of guilt was slight. Nor was there any chance of feigning ignorant innocence. That cursed servant we’d unluckily aroused and bullied wouldn’t forget the sword I’d menaced him with.

Yet the damage to my host’s cherished property troubled me far less than one other thing. Our travesty of a duel would be broadcast to a rejoicing countryside; in fact I, Ingram Applegarth, would soon share with Naunton the hideous distinction of being the most mirth-provoking figures in the county. That I must leave and never return to my native Westmoreland was a foregone conclusion. Give the story a few days and every cow in the north country would roll over on its back at sight of me and kick its legs in uncontrollable amusement.

I had barely compassed the desolation of my fortunes when the first lucky thing happened since Giles had arrived to ruin my evening. A cock crew. Looking about, I discovered that the sky had lightened just enough to let me make out the dim outline of the manor against the sky. Unstrapping my sword for speedier faring, I made for it.

What my opponent’s plans were I didn’t know. I half expected to run across him, but as it turned out I met no one at all in my stealthy trip to get my saddlebags from my room and my equally secretive visit to the stable. My horse was against being saddled at such an hour but my grim firmness made short work of his rebellion. A drizzle abetted the dank chill of the hour as I rode forth, but that was only to be expected in a spot polluted with Naunton. Next time I met that one, I swore to myself, things would be different.

Then as if the rankling past and the cheerless present were not enough there was the barren future to face. Old Vernier’s was hardly eight hours’ travel from home, and it was no more than another day’s journey to the friend with whom I had planned to spend a few weeks when I set out. But I could hide neither from my shame nor my late host’s suit for damages anywhere in the vicinity. At the crossroads, therefore, I groaned as only the suddenly bereft can and took the road south for London. I had boasted I was going there, and here I was making good in spite of myself.

It was all very well to visit the capital, and I had several times done so with enthusiasm, but if I was going to try to live there — as I gloomily supposed I was — I’d have to find some as yet unimaginable employment. A lucky run at dice had comfortably filled my pockets for me just before my departure, but eventually I’d have to find a more consistently reliable means of augmenting the income from what there was of my estate.

Naturally I had recognized that I would have to earn a livelihood some time; but I was only a year out of the university, and it had seemed foolishness to make hasty decisions about anything so important as a career. The urge to work, which visits some people early and others not at all, had, at twenty-one, not yet harried me. It was comfortable at the Garth and the neighborhood provided plenty of girls to make love to, as well as plenty of lads to carouse with in addition to good hunting and fishing. Moreover, seeing that I was my easygoing uncle’s perpetual guest my modest funds were reasonably sufficient to my needs.

I sighed enviously as I thought of my cousin Peter. All that was expected of him was to swank it on a tour of the continent and to wait for my uncle to die, whereupon he would become a baron and an honored man in the realm. Why couldn’t I have been an heir to a title? It was an easy, dignified position suited to my tastes and talents. I wouldn’t have even been impatient as I sometimes suspected was the case with Peter.

But no, such good chance couldn’t befall luckless Ingram Applegarth. Orphaned from early childhood, I must now leave the only home I’d ever known, leave all my friends, leave all the girls I might want to marry and scratch for myself in a hostile world. Why look at me now: with everybody else snug in bed, here I was, rain-chilled, bone-weary and sleepless on a lonesome road. My misery, indeed, had some reality, and in the sodden dimness there seemed little reason to believe it would have an ending.

CHAPTER II

JUST because a man feels disgruntled at dawn he doesn’t have to be woebegone at noon. The sun was out by that time, and my disposition was for more than one reason in better case than it had been when I left old Vernier’s.

Breakfast at an inn had restored some of my faith in the basic soundness of things. And changing to dry clothes and catching an hour’s sleep had further improved matters. Then, too, though the fiasco of the duel still rankled I had come to see that in some ways it was better than one fought more in the tradition. Duels without witnesses, though often fought in the heat of blood, were frowned upon when they ended fatally. Judges and such were apt to use the nasty word murder.

I was unmoved in my opinion that to fight Naunton at any time was an act of grace, and I was as fixed in my determination never to return to suffer the broad grins of Westmoreland. But, as I said, the universe had emerged from the cloud of my displeasure. It was a sweet day, first of all, clean and green and full of birds, butterflies and flowers. The sun was warm though not hot, and it had rained enough to lay the dust while not enough to make mud.

Moreover, and above all, I was beginning to relish my new dignity as a completely independent citizen of the world. After all it was something, now that home had become closed to me by my own folly, to be bound for London to make my fortunes at — well, to make my fortunes anyhow. The details could be settled when I’d looked over the proffers of destiny. Meanwhile, I could see no reason why my so far unstrained capabilities shouldn’t exact from the nation the meed that was their due.

Pursuant to the above musings, I decided that Fate had known its business when it launched me abroad. Westmoreland was well enough, and a likeable land surely, but it was far too limiting a vessel for me. I almost felt sorrow for my cousin Peter, doomed to waste his life in profitless ease with no better hopes than of being called my lord.

I was myself whistling an air when I was startled by a deep, pleasant voice singing full-throatedly just ahead:

Oh, now I am a spectre

And night-mate to the owl

I mope along on nectar,

A drink both flat and foul

Compared to all the nappy ale

I drank until — ah, woeful tale! —

I rashly died to save my house

From the tyranny of the Bramley Mouse.

I have more than a fondness for good drinking songs, and I listened in fascination to one so different from those in my repertoire. Only another rider of a hobby would understand the passion, but to hear a mere part of such a catch would tantalize me damnably. Old Venner would have understood my feeling were it translated into terms of beef.

There was a twitch in the highway just ahead but when I negotiated it he was still not in sight. A slim road broke away to the left and it was from down this that the voice was coming. I slowed up in hopes of catching sight of the singer but at the refrain I made certain that he was traveling away from me.

I didn’t mind the way he swore,

(Myself I am no prude)

Or how he’d gamble, drink, and whore,

But he was vilely rude;

For what had always been my own

He commandeered and ruled alone

With never a thankee to atone

For eating all the cheese.

Now it was not my custom to quiz a stranger while going his own way whether I found his songs curious or not. Ordinarily I would have shrugged and ridden on, but I was in a peculiar mood, one that had grown on me with the day. The realization I was foot-loose, at first disturbing, was giving birth to a new and exciting conception of myself as a glamorous adventurer.

So whereas a few hours before I would have felt self-conscious about going out of my way to indulge a whim I found such conduct proper to my current way of life. I was myself alone, a man who did what he wanted to when he so wished, and my whims were their own justification. I nodded to myself and followed where the words led me.

I tried both rhyme and reason,

But nothing would avail:

He claimed he’d taken seisin

Of me, myself and ale;

And if I’d chide he’d bare his fangs

And punish me with cruel bangs,

So all of us in that sad house

Were at the beck of a demon mouse.

I didn’t mind the fact he slept

At times with good Aunt Nell,

An aging maid whom thus he kept

From leading apes in Hell,

But I was sickened to the core

To find myself so bare of store,

For though I’d threaten and implore

He’d eat up all the cheese.

Although the catch at large had notable pace the last line was voiced flatly and sadly. I could see good fellows banging their cups on the tables as he sang, and my mind was busy storing the intricacies of the tune. Even the horse liked it, and his hoofs kept a sort of time as he speeded up. I myself was leaning forward, expecting to see my man around each successive little hitch in the narrow, tree-shaded road.

Now I like cheese — and finely!

(A factor in this tale)

For it was made divinely

To go with nappy ale —

The nearness