PLOTS AND PRINCES
But the Duke of Lyonesse was not dead. He lay at the King's Arms in the
town of Newton Douglas, well peppered with slugs, and swearing most
royally. Lord Wargrove was alone in attendance upon him. One might well
pity him, for his job was no pleasant one.
Eben the Spy had disappeared, and with him every stiver of the Prince's
money, which had been kept in a leathern dispatch case carefully stowed
beneath the seat of the carriage. His wallet of jewels, too, had
vanished, so that the poor Duke had never a spare snuff-box or a change
of rings.
More wonderful still was the official declaration made and sworn to
before the Fiscal and Sheriff. The attack had been made entirely for the
purpose of robbery, by Ebenezer McClure and a band of malefactors,
collected by him for the purpose. In proof of which it was shown that
the said Eben McClure had driven the carriage into a trap, previously
laid with care in the dangerous defile of the White Water near where it
enters into the loch of that name, that he had removed the Duke's
treasure during the fight, and so escaped, mounted upon one of the
horses which he had borrowed of his kinsman Kennedy of Supsorrow. The
name of Patsy Ferris did not appear.
This explains why on arriving at Newton Douglas in search of his steeds,
Kennedy McClure found himself pulled down from his horse, treated with
much official roughness, and finally lodged in the townhouse awaiting
his removal to the gaol of Wigton. He began to think that the fifty
pounds which had been paid down by Eben of Stonykirk constituted but a
feeble consolation for losses such as his. The Duke could not see him.
My Lord of Wargrove would not, and Captain Laurence, to whom in
desperation he made his plea, consigned him with extreme conciseness of
speech to the deepest and hottest pit of Eblis.
All these things made no considerable stir in the little village of
Newton Douglas, which was beginning to extend itself under the heights
of Penninghame. The borough was proud of its guest, but what the Duke
and his hench-man desired most of all was to be safely across Cree
Bridge and to place a county or two between them and the wrath of Adam
Ferris and his brother-in-law Julian Wemyss, whom they held to be
answerable for the attack at the White Loch. So as soon as the wounded
man could be moved, the best horses to be had in Minnigaff drew the
coach gingerly across the bridge and out of immediate danger of pursuit.
* * * * *
The Duke thought it safest to make as little of the occurrence as
possible. He had many debts, and the present loss of his treasures
seemed a good chance to get the Government to pay off his creditors. He
had, he was willing to swear, been bringing over from Ireland the moneys
with which to conclude the arrangement. And now he had lost not only the
treasure but his jewels as well, in the discharge of his duty to the
King and the Houses of Parliament. What more fitting, therefore, than
that the loss should be made good to him, together with some
compensation for the wounds he had sustained in the defence of his
creditors' property?
During the rest at Carlisle it was agreed that Lord Wargrove, in
consultation with Mr. Robert Adam, the Duke's legal adviser and boon
companion, should draw up a schedule of his losses--such as might be
expected to pass the House of Commons without any of the unpleasant
rakings up of the past which usually distinguished these periodical
cleanings of the slate.
Only a couple of years had elapsed since the Commons had been engaged
for weeks in the examination of the Duke of York's affair with Mrs.
Clarke, and the Duke of Lyonesse felt that he must not allow his
application to be handicapped by the account of an attempt at abduction,
such as that of which the daughter of Adam Ferris had been the object.
It became highly necessary, therefore, that the mouths of the girl's
relatives should be closed, and it seemed to the Prince and his advisers
that the delicate negotiations could better be conducted through Julian
Wemyss, who at least could not fail to know the character of his former
attaché.
"Besides, I know something about _him_," said the Duke, "which will make
him think twice before denouncing me."
Lord Wargrove put an eager question. He would have rejoiced to be able
to repeat in society the tale of some disgraceful and unpublished
scandal attached to the name of the ex-ambassador.
"No, no," said the Duke, promptly, "nothing of that sort. There is
nothing against him personally. But he will hold his peace for the sake
of a certain great lady. Oh, Wemyss is a man. He quitted his post at
Vienna rather than bring a lady's name into a quarrel, in course of
which he was challenged. Now ambassadors do not fight duels, so he
resigned and killed his man. I was there at the time."
"Ah," said my Lord Wargrove, thoughtfully, "so he is a wine of that
vintage, is he? Then we shall probably hear more of the little adventure
which went to smash when that old thief's horses blundered into those
white gates."
"You do not suppose," cried the Prince, startled into raising himself
incautiously on his elbow so that he grimaced with pain, "that it was
Wemyss who pursued us?"
"Certainly not," said Wargrove. "If he is the man you describe, he would
never have fired a blunderbuss into a dark carriage. He would have
stopped the horses and shot us one after the other at twenty paces like
a gentleman."
"What, without seconds! That would have been murder!" exclaimed the Duke
of Lyonesse, who liked well enough running away with pretty maids, but
much deprecated the interference of inconvenient relatives afterwards.
As, for that matter, did most of the royal princes of that time.
_Who did their ill by stealth,_
_But blushed to find it fame._
"A man who can resign an ambassadorship to pink his man is never in want
of a second, specially in his own country. He would have fought us--be
sure of that--and so far as I am concerned, the pleasure is only
postponed. As for you, your Highness had better get to Windsor or
Carlton House, as soon as may be."
"I cannot go to Carlton House," the Duke answered sadly, "though I dare
say George would be glad enough to see me. We always had a great deal in
common, but all that is of no use. The Fitz does not like me and she is
ruling the roost there again."
"Well," said Wargrove, quaintly, "I shall be jotting down the provisions
of my last will and testament as we are jogging along southward."
"I wonder," said his Royal Highness, pensively, "what has become of the
little baggage. She would have been entrancing if we only could have got
her safely trapped."
"Well," said my Lord, "you would not listen before, but I tell you now
that if you _had_ trapped her, as you say, you would certainly have died
in bed with a dagger in your throat. That was what she meant by 'Oh, if
I only had it!' You heard her say that. I remember my cousin Southwald
getting hold of an Italian girl--a little minx from Apulia, fine as silk
but dusky as a Brazil nut. She fought wild and bitter like a trapped
wild cat. It was at Lecce in Murat's time, but Southwald was conceited
that he could gentle her. He did not care for what he called the
'full-uddered kine.' He liked them parched and lithe with eyes like
smouldering fires--"
"Ah, like Patsy!" said the Duke, not yet cured of his love-sickness.
"Exactly," countered my Lord, "like Miss Patsy to a hair. Well, when we
went into his tent the next morning--Murat had excused him
service--he--well, he was not pretty to see. To begin with, his throat
was cut and the girl nowhere to be seen. Yet I could be sworn I tied her
wrists tightly enough. One look at Southwald spoilt more breakfasts than
mine that day, and Murat himself, who did not stick at trifles, brought
all his available officers, a whole camp of them, and made poor
Southwald the text for a little discourse. No, Murat did not say
anything, he only pointed, but my cousin made a better homily and
application than parson ever preached."
"And pray what were either of you doing in Apulia with the
brother-in-law of Buonaparte?" cried the Duke, who compounded for the
sin of private cowardice by excessive public patriotism.
"You were at Vienna at the time, and ought to remember," said my Lord,
quite calmly. "Murat was keen to emancipate himself from the yoke of the
Emperor, and was playing for his own hand. Southwald and I had been sent
informally from Malta to Naples to discover what lengths he was prepared
to go."
"Nonsense, Wargrove, I know better," the Duke exclaimed. "That was not
your real reason."
"It was that which was marked on our passports and safe-conducts. But"
(here he yawned courteously behind his hand) "perhaps your Highness has
remarked that though the Buonapartes are doubtless all great rascals,
their female kind have a habit of being deucedly pretty and
liberal-minded women!"
"But why then did your cousin mix himself up with little blackamoors?"
"_Chacun à son gout!_" said Wargrove, lightly. "I always knew that my
taste in women was better than Southies. So he got what I tell you, and
I"--(he fingered at a ribbon), "I got the Order of the Golden
Fleece--Murat's own, which he had brought from Madrid after the Dos de
Mayo. Murat was pleased with me. I read the burial service over
Southwald out of a prayer-book his mother had written his name in, with
Murat and his Frenchmen standing round with bared heads like gentlemen,
though they could never have seen a priest before in a Guards' uniform."
"And the girl?" demanded the Duke. "Of course she was sought for and
punished?"
Wargrove sighed long and then paused to give his words wing. "Not at
all," he said. "I think the general feeling was that Southwald was a
fool and deserved what he got. I know that was my own impression!"
"Jove!" cried the Duke, suddenly wroth, "I shall not suffer this,
Wargrove. You mean me!"
"That," said Wargrove, with a face like a statue hewn in granite, "is
precisely as your Highness pleases."