Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 147: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CLOVELLY. — yet recovered from a wound which he had received at sword play with Clovelly not many days before. Suffering of the flesh had been less than the suffering of the spirit of this man, who could not bear to be shut away from all of his old delights of fluttering around the court, of haunting the fashionable coffee-houses, of hearing a rare word from a wit here, and a profound judg- ment there; of sipping like a bee at a thou- sand flowers, a thousand bits of gossip spiced with malice, and blending all that pollen into a honey of delicious lies to be given freely away to those who were his friends. How could Ned Marberry endure a life cooped within half a dozen rooms? No mat- ter that his friends came often about him. The aroma of the tales they told him was staled already by time. For what is the joy of sitting still like an old woman over her knitting and listening to the chattered scandal which two granddaughters rattle for each other and for her ears? Far sweeter, far sweeter, surely, to over- hear a conversation whispered in a corner of Will’s coffee-house with so keen an ear that all the double meanings are deciphered and unspoken things are added to the spok- en. How exquisite a delight to probe through the conversation of two fops and under the flowing of their banter to discov- er the very names of the ladies of whom they talk! In such arts was Marberry a master. He was, indeed, a known genius in his line and those who wished not for the rank and open talk of the court but for those hidden un- dercurrents and for those overtones of mis- chief, hunted him out and made much of him, if perchance he would open his budget of news. For although it was known that he would rather invent lies than be discovered with- out what he reported to be a “ new tale,” yet his lies were so cunningly planned and always based at the foundation upon such bedrock of truth, that they never failed to come near enough to the truth to make some beauty in Whitehall turn pale or some gentleman at a fashionable tavern wince while the steel glided through his spirit. 200 But having been confined to his room, or damned to it, as he phrased his impris- onment, every hour and every day infinitely increased his misery and he was now in a poisonous frame of mind_so that a smile of nervous malice was constantly upon his thin lips and wrinkling his haggard cheeks, and his tongue carried a mortal sting in every sentence. He watched the shadow of the closing door before he looked up from his chair to- ward his visitor. Although the face of the stranger was thoroughly masked by a high furling cloak collar, yet Marberry saw enough to make him shrug his shoulders and laugh. “You’ve ridden through the mud, then,” he said. ‘ Lord, Betty, you’ve come on a far journey like a little fool. Don’t stand there like an idiot with your face still masked. Come, come! ‘“‘ Any man with an eye in his head could tell by the mincing manner in which you stand with your feet so close together, that there is a woman beneath that cloak, and a damned silly one, I believe! But show your face, minx! I’m tired of talking to a wall.” At this, the collar of the cloak was low- ered. ‘“‘ By all the dear heavens!” breathed the voluptuary, half rising himself from his chair until the sudden burning of his wound made him release his hold upon the arms of the chair and sink back again. Then: “ Clovelly!” shouted Marberry. “A little louder,” sneered Clovelly. “London will be glad to hear that I am come.” “Have you dared to show your face in the city?” cried Marberry. ‘‘ When the whole town is placarded with descriptions of you and rewards offered?” 3 ““T have brought some few along with me,” said Clovelly. He plucked some crumpled handbills out of his pocket and cast them upon the table. “The price of my head goes up,” he ob- served casually. “ What with the contribu- tions of the worthy squire and my lord Pen- nistone, I considered that there was enough offered to make me a fat prize even to a prince of the blood roval, hut, now.incomes.. .