All this merely brings the narrative back to the announcement made by
Marmaduke to Lindley and Johan when they entered the courtyard of The
Jolly Grig after the fight with the highwaymen.
As may be supposed, it was several nights before Lindley was
sufficiently recovered from his wound to again keep tryst with Johan,
the player's boy. When at last he could ride out to the edge of the
Ogilvie woods, he found the lad sitting on the ground under an oak,
apparently waiting for whatever might happen. He did not speak at all
until he was accosted by Lindley, and then he merely recited in a
listless manner that Mistress Judith was gone to London with her
father.
The boy's manner was so changed, his tone was so forlorn, that
Lindley's sympathy was awakened. He wondered if the lad really loved
Judith so devotedly.
"And that has left you so disconsolate?" he asked.
"Ay, my master!" Indeed the youth's tone was disconsolate, even as a
true lover's might have been.
"And when went Mistress Judith to London?" asked Lindley. "This
afternoon? This morning?"
"But no. She went some four days ago, all in a hurry, as it seemed,"
Johan answered.
"Four days ago!" echoed Lindley. "But why did you not send me word?"
He was thinking of the days that had been wasted with his lady near
him, all unknown to him, in London.
"She--I mean--I thought you would be here each night," stammered the
boy, contritely, and yet his tone was listless. "I've but kept the
tryst with you."
Lindley looked at the boy curiously. Preoccupied as he was with his
own thoughts, he still recognized the change in his companion.
"What's the matter, Johan?" he asked. "You were not hurt the other
night, were you? Are you still brooding on the fact that you killed
your man? Are you ill? Or do you fear that I've forgot my debt? What
ails you? Can't you tell me?" The questions hurried on, one after
another. "Or is it Mistress Judith's absence, alone, that hurts you
thus? Is she to be long in London?"
"N--no. That is, I do not know," the boy made answer to the last
question. "We, my master and I and all his company, go ourselves early
to-morrow to London. Doubtless I shall see Mistress Judith there."
"Why, then, 'tis only that the scene will shift to London," cried
Lindley. "Cheer up, my lad, we'll name a tryst in London. Besides,
there's news waiting you in London; news for you and your master
concerning your bond to him. You hardly look the part of a lad who's
won to freedom by a pretty bit of swordplay. You should have learned
ere now to fit your countenance to the parts you perform."
"But I've performed so few parts, Master Lindley. I am only Johan, the
player's boy, and, by your leave, I'll go now, and for a
tryst--she--for our tryst, say at ten o'clock, in front of Master
Timothy Ogilvie's mansion, where Mistress Judith and her father lodge.
I'll have surely seen Mistress Judith then, and can report to you any
change, if change there be."
The slender lad slipped back into the shadows of the Ogilvie woods,
but for full ten minutes he held Lindley's thoughts away from the lady
of his heart's desire. What could ail the lad to be so changed, so
spiritless? Was his love so deep that to be weaned from Judith for
even a few short hours could break his spirit thus? Or was it possible
that the duel and the fatigues of that midnight encounter had been too
much for his strength? Lindley could answer none of these questions,
so the lover's thoughts soon strayed back to Mistress Judith, and the
player's lad was forgot.
But even Mistress Judith held not all of Lindley's thoughts that
night, for Lord Farquhart's fate was resting heavily on his mind. That
Farquhart was, indeed, the gentleman of the highways Lindley knew to
be impossible, and yet all the facts seemed to be against the
imprisoned lord. Even Lindley's word had gone against him, for Lindley
had been questioned, and had been obliged to admit that he had heard
Lord Farquhart singing in his room above the stairs at the very time
when Clarence Treadway, when Farquhart himself, swore that he was
asleep belowstairs in Treadway's room. There was no evidence,
whatsoever, for Lord Farquhart save his own words. All the evidence
was against him.
And the affair that had savored more of a jest than of reality seemed
gradually to be settling down to a dull, unpleasant truth. Farquhart
could and would tell but the one tale. Ashley would tell but one tale,
and he, in truth, had convinced himself of Farquhart's guilt, absurd
as it seemed. The Lady Barbara could only lie on her bed and moan and
sob, and cry that she loved Lord Farquhart; that she wished she could
unsay her words. She could not deny the truth of what she had told,
though nothing could induce her to tell the story over. But all of her
stuttering, stammering evasions of the truth seemed only to fix the
guilt more clearly upon Lord Farquhart. Even to Lindley, who had been
with him on the night in question, it did not seem altogether
impossible that Lord Farquhart had had time to ride forth, waylay his
cousin and rejoin his friends at the inn ere the lady drove into the
courtyard.
Another point that stood out strongly against Lord Farquhart--a point
that was weighing heavily in public opinion--was that since the night
of Lady Barbara's arrival in London, since which time Lord Farquhart
had been obliged to be in close attendance upon his cousin, there had
been no hold ups by this redoubtable highwayman. The men who had
attacked Lindley and the player's lad had been but bungling robbers of
the road. That they could have had any connection with the robbery of
the Lady Barbara, or with the other dashing plays of the Black Devil,
had been definitely disproved.
So all of Farquhart's friends were weighed down with apprehension of
the fate in store for him, whether he was guilty or not. The only hope
lay in Lord Grimsby, the old man who had been convinced that the
highwayman was in league with the devil, if he was not the devil
himself; the old man whose only son had vowed to take to the road if
the Black Highwayman met his fate at his father's hands. But the hopes
that were based on the demon-inspired terror, and the paternal love of
Lord Grimsby, seemed faint, indeed, to Lindley as he rode toward
London that night.