Part 34

Spurring their horses, they broke through the low hedge that bordered the road-side, and galloped at a rapid pace across the fields beyond. The approaching party viewed this movement with lively suspicion.

"Who can they be?" queried Sir Lewis Lewknor, one of the noblemen.

His companion, who was no less a personage than Sir Henry Mainwaring, lieutenant of Dover Castle, looked questioningly after the fugitives.

"They are well mounted and have the start on us. We cannot overtake them," he muttered.

"You know them, then?" asked Lewknor.

"I have my doubt that two of them are the young Barneveldts, who have just tried to murder the Prince of Orange. They must be stopped and questioned."

He turned and bade one of his followers to ride back with all speed to Canterbury, and bid the magistrates to detain three suspicious travellers, who would soon reach that town. This done, the train moved on, Mainwaring satisfied that he had checked the runaways, whoever they were.

The Smiths and their attendant reached Canterbury in good time, but this time they were outridden. Mainwaring's messenger had got in before them, and the young adventurers found themselves stopped by a mounted guard, with the unwelcome tidings that his honor, the mayor, would like to see them.

Being brought before his honor, they blustered a little, talked in big tones of the rights of Englishmen, and asked angrily who had dared order their detention. They found master mayor cool and decided.

"Gentlemen, you will stay here till I know better who you are," he said. "Sir Henry Mainwaring has ordered you to be stopped, and he best knows why. Nor do I fancy he has gone amiss, for your names of Tom and John Smith fit you about as well as your beards."

At these words, the one that claimed the name of John Smith burst into a hearty laugh. Seizing his beard, he gave it a slight jerk, and it came off in his hand. The mayor started in surprise. The face before him was one that he very well knew.

"The Marquis of Buckingham!" he exclaimed.

"The same, at your service," said Buckingham, still laughing. "Mainwaring takes me for other than I am. Likely enough he deems me a runaway road-agent. You will scarcely stop the lord admiral, going in disguise to Dover to make a secret inspection of the fleet?"

"Why, that certainly changes the case," said the mayor. "But who is your companion?" he continued, in a low tone, looking askance at the other.

"A young gallant of the court, who keeps me company," said Buckingham, carelessly.

"The road is free before you, gentlemen," said the mayor, graciously. "I will answer to Mainwaring."

He turned and bade his guards to deliver their horses to the travellers. But his eyes followed them with a peculiar twinkle as they left the room.

"A young gallant of the court!" he muttered. "I have seen that gallant before. Well, well, what mad frolic is afoot? Thank the stars, I am not bound, by virtue of my office, to know him."

The party reached Dover without further adventure. But the inspection of the fleet was evidently an invention for the benefit of the mayor. Instead of troubling themselves about the fleet, they entered a vessel that seemed awaiting them, and on whose deck they were joined by two companions. In a very short time they were out of harbor and off with a fresh wind across the Channel. Mainwaring had been wrong,--was the ferryman right?--was a duel the purpose of this flight in disguise?

No; the travellers made no halt at Boulogne, the favorite duelling-ground of English hot-bloods, but pushed off in haste for Montreuil, and thence rode straight to Paris, which they reached after a two-days' journey.

It seemed an odd freak, this ride in disguise for the mere purpose of a visit to Paris. But there was nothing to indicate that the two young men had any other object as they strolled carelessly during the next day about the French capital, known to none there, and enjoying themselves like school-boys on a holiday.

Among the sights which they managed to see were the king, Louis XIII., and his royal mother, Marie de Medicis. That evening a mask was to be rehearsed at the palace, in which the queen and the Princess Henrietta Maria were to take part. On the plea of being strangers in Paris, the two young Englishmen managed to obtain admittance to this royal merrymaking, which they highly enjoyed. As to what they saw, we have a partial record in a subsequent letter from one of them.

"There danced," says this epistle, "the queen and madame, with as many as made up nineteen fair dancing ladies; amongst which the queen is the handsomest, which hath wrought in me a greater desire to see her sister."

This sister was then at Madrid, for the queen of France was a daughter of Philip III. of Spain. And, as if Spain was the true destination of the travellers, and to see the French queen's sister their object, at the early hour of three the next morning they were up and on horseback, riding out of Paris on the road to Bayonne. Away they went, pressing onward at speed, he whom we as yet know only as Tom Smith taking the lead, and pushing forward with such youthful eagerness that even the seasoned Buckingham looked the worse for wear before they reached the borders of Spain.

Who was this eager errant knight? All London by this time knew, and it is time that we should learn. Indeed, while the youthful wayfarers were speeding away on their mad and merry ride, the privy councillors of England were on their knees before King James, half beside themselves with apprehension, saying that Prince Charles had disappeared, that the rumor was that he had gone to Spain, and begging to know if this wild rumor were true.

"There is no doubt of it," said the king. "But what of that? His father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all went into foreign countries to fetch home their wives,--why not the prince, my son?"

"England may learn why," was the answer of the alarmed councillors, and after them of the disturbed country. "The king of Spain is not to be trusted with such a royal morsel. Suppose he seizes the heir to England's throne, and holds him as hostage! The boy is mad, and the king in his dotage to permit so wild a thing." Such was the scope of general comment on the prince's escapade.

While England fumed, and King James had begun to fret in chorus with the country, his "sweet boys and dear venturous knights, worthy to be put in a new romanso," as he had remarked on first learning of their flight, were making their way at utmost horse-speed across France. A few miles beyond Bayonne they met a messenger from the Earl of Bristol, ambassador at Madrid, bearing despatches to England. They stopped him, opened his papers, and sought to read them, but found the bulk of them written in a cipher beyond their powers to solve. Baffled in this, they bade Gresley, the messenger, to return with them as far as Irun, as they wished him to bear to the king a letter written on Spanish soil.