In the white moonlight Sir Jasper Standish paced up and down the
cobble-stoned yard with as monotonous a restlessness as if he had been
hired this night to act the living sign at the Bear Inn, Devizes.
Each time he passed the low open window of the inn parlour, in which
sat Mr. Stafford by the dim yellow light of two long-tongued tallow
candles, the baronet would pause a moment to exchange from without a
few dismal words with his friend. The latter, puffing at a long clay
pipe, endeavoured in the intervals to while away the heavy minutes in
the perusal of some tome out of mine host's library--a unique
collection and celebrated on the Bath Road.
"Tom Stafford," said Sir Jasper, for the twentieth time, "how goes the
hour?"
"Damned slowly, friend," said Stafford, consulting with a yawn the most
exact of three watches at his fob. "To be precise, 'tis two minutes
and one third since I told you that it wanted a quarter of midnight."
Sir Jasper fell once more to his ursine perambulation, and Stafford,
yawning again, flicked over a page. He had not reached the bottom of
it, however, before Sir Jasper's form returned between him and the
moonlight.
"What," said the injured husband, "what if they should have taken
another road?"
"Then," cried Stafford, closing his book with a snap between both his
palms, tossing it on to the table and stretching himself desperately,
"I shall only have to fight you myself for this most insufferably dull
evening that you have made me spend, when I was due at more than one
rendezvous, and had promised pretty Bellairs the first minuet."
"It shall be pistols," said Sir Jasper, following his own thoughts with
a sort of gloomy lust, "pistols, Tom. For either he or I shall breathe
our last to-night."
"Pistols with all my heart," said Stafford, stopping his pipe with his
little finger. "Only do, like a good fellow, make up your mind--just
for the sake of variety. I think the last time we considered the
matter, we had decided for this"--describing a neat thrust at Sir
Jasper's waistcoat through the window with the long stem of his
churchwarden. "There's more blood about it, Jasper," he suggested
critically.
"True," murmured the other, again all indecision. "But pistols at five
paces----."
"Well--yes, there's a charm about five paces, I admit," returned the
second with some weariness, dropping back again into his chair. "And
we can reload, you know."
"If I fall," said Sir Jasper, with the emotion which generally
overtakes a man who contemplates a tragic contingency to himself, "be
gentle with her. She has sinned, but she was very dear to me."
"She'll make a deuced elegant widow," said Stafford, musingly, after a
little pause, during which he had conjured up Lady Standish's especial
points with the judgment of a true connoisseur.
"You must conduct her back to her home," gulped Sir Jasper, a minute
later, slowly thrusting in his head again. "Alack, would that I had
never fetched her thence.... Had you but seen her, when I wooed and
won her, Tom! A country flower, all innocence, a wild rose.... And
now, deceitful, double-faced!"
"'Tis the way of the wild rose," said Stafford, philosophically. "Let
you but transplant it from the native hedgerow, and before next season
it grows double."
Here the speaker, who was always ready with a generous appreciation of
his own conceits, threw his head back and laughed consumedly, while Sir
Jasper uttered some sounds between a growl and a groan.
The volatile second in waiting wiped his eyes.
"Go to, man," cried he, turning with sudden irascibility upon his
friend, "for pity's sake take that lugubrious countenance of thine out
of my sight. What the devil I ever saw in thee, Jasper, to make a
friend of, passes my comprehension: for, of all things, I love a fellow
with a spark of wit. And thou, lad, lackest the saving grace of humour
so wofully, that, in truth, I fear--well--thou art in a parlous state:
I fear damnation waits thee, for 'tis incurable. What! in God's name
cannot a man lose a throw in the game of happiness and yet laugh?
Cannot a husbandman detect a poacher on his land and yet laugh as he
sets the gin? Why," cried Mr. Stafford, warming to his thesis, and
clambering lightly out of the window to seat himself on the outer sill,
"strike me ugly! shall not a gentleman be ever ready to meet his fate
with a smile? I vow I've never yet seen Death's head grin at me, but
I've given him the grin back--split me!"
"Hark--hark!" cried Sir Jasper, pricking his strained ear, "d'ye hear?"
"Pooh!" said Mr. Stafford, "only the wind in the tree."
"Nay," cried Sir Jasper; "hush man, listen!"
An unmistakable rumbling grew upon the still night air--a confused
medley of sounds which gradually unravelled themselves upon their
listening ears. It was the rhythmical striking of many hoofs, the roll
of wheels, the crack of a merciless whip.
"Faith and faith," cried Stafford, pleasantly exhilarated, "I believe
you're right, Jasper; here they come!"
The moonlight swam blood-red before Sir Jasper's flaming eye. "Pistols
or swords?" questioned he again of himself, and grasped his hilt as the
nearest relief, pending the decisive moment.
Out slouched a couple of sleepy ostlers, as Master Lawrence, mine host,
rang the stable bell.
Betty, the maid, threw a couple of logs on the fire, while the dame in
the bar, waking from her snooze, demanded the kettle, selected some
lemons, and ordered candlesticks and dips with reckless prodigality.
* * * * *
Mistress Kitty, peering out of the carriage window, her shoulder still
turned upon the unhappy and unforgiven swain, hailed the twinkling
lights of the _Bear Inn_ with lively eyes.
While the chaise described an irreproachable curve round the yard, her
quick glance had embraced every element of the scene. Sir Jasper's
bulky figure, with folded arms, was leaning against the post of the inn
door, awaiting her approach--retribution personified--capriciously
illumined by the orange rays of the landlord's lantern. Out in the
moonlight, shining in his pearl gray satin and powdered head, all
silver from crest to shoe-buckle, like the prince of fairy lore, sat
Stafford on his window-ledge, as gallant a picture to a woman's eye,
the widow had time to think, as one could wish to see on such a night.
"Oh," she thought, "how we are going to enjoy ourselves at last!"
And being too true an artist to consider her mere personal convenience
upon a question of effect, she resolved to defer the crisis until the
ripe moment, no matter at what cost. Accordingly, even as O'Hara cried
out, in tones of surprise and disgust: "Thunder and turf! my darling,
if there isn't now that blethering ox, Sir Jasper!" Mistress Kitty
instantly covered her face with her lace and swooned away on the
Irishman's breast.
Sir Jasper charged the coach door. "Blethering ox!" he bellowed.
"I'll teach you, sir, what I am! I'll teach that woman--I'll, I'll----"
Here Stafford sprang lightly to the rescue.
"For Heaven's sake," said he, "think of our names as gentlemen; let it
be swords or pistols, Jasper, or swords and pistols, if you like, but
not fistycuffs and collaring. Be quiet, Jasper! And you, sir," said
he to O'Hara, as sternly as he could for the tripping of his laughter,
"having done your best to add that to a gentleman's head which shall
make his hats sit awry for the remainder of his days, do you think it
generous to give his condition so precise a name?"
"O hush," cried O'Hara, in too deep distress to pay attention either to
abuse or banter, "give me room, gentlemen, for God's sake. Don't you
see the lady has fainted?"
With infinite precaution and tenderness he emerged from the chay with
his burden, elbowing from his path on one side the curious and
officious landlord, on the other the struggling husband.
"Oh, what have I done at all!" cried the distracted lover, as the
inertness of the weight in his arms began to fill him with apprehension
for his dear. "Sure, alanna, there's nothing to be afraid of! Sure,
am I not here? Och, me darling, if----"
But here Sir Jasper escaped from his friend's control. "I'll not stand
it," cried he. "'Tis more than flesh and blood can endure. Give her
up to me, sir. How dare you hold her?" He fell upon O'Hara in the
rear and seized him, throttling, round the neck.
"I'll dare you in a minute, ye mad divil!" yelled O'Hara, in a fury no
whit less violent than that of his assailant. Thus cried he, then
choked.
In the scuffle they had reached the parlour.
"Oh, Jasper, Jasper, in the name of decency!" protested Stafford,
vainly endeavouring to pluck the baronet from the Irishman's back.
"And you, Denis lad, I entreat of you, cease to provoke him. Zooks, my
boy, remember he has some prior claim--what shall I say? some little
vested interest----"
"I'll stuff him with his own red hair!" asseverated Sir Jasper, foaming
at the mouth as, under a savage push from O'Hara's elbow he fell back,
staggering, into Stafford's power.
"Prior claims--vested interest is it! Some of you will have to swallow
those words before I'll be got to swallow anything here," swore Denis
O'Hara, almost gaily, in the exaltation of his Celtic rage. "Sure,
'tis mad, I know ye are, lepping mad, Sir Jasper, but ought you not to
be ashamed of yourself before the lady? She's quivering with the
fright.... Lie here, my angel," said he, vibrating from the loudest
note of defiance to the tenderest cooing. "Lie here; there's not a
ha'porth to frighten ye, were there fifty such twopenny old crazy
weathercocks crowing at you!"
So saying, he deposited his burthen tenderly in the leather-winged
arm-chair by the fire-place, and turned with a buoyant step towards Sir
Jasper.
"Come out," said he, "come out, sir. Sure, leave him alone, Tom, 'tis
the only way to quiet him at all. Sure, after our little game the
other night, wasn't he that dove-like, poor fellow, a child might have
milked him?"
The quivering form in the chair here emitted a scale of hysterical
little notes that seemed wrung from her by the most irrepressible
emotion. And:
"Oh, oh," exclaimed Mr. Stafford, unable, in the midst of his laughter,
to retain any further grip upon his friend.
"My darling," once more began the solicitous O'Hara, turning his head
round towards the arm-chair, but:
"Judas!" hissed Sir Jasper, and furiously interposed his bulk between
the Irishman and his intention.
"Faith," cried Stafford, "can't you cover that head of yours, somehow,
O'Hara? I vow the very sight of it is still the red rag to the
bull.... The bull, aha!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" broke in, this time uncontrolled, the merriment from the
chair.
The three men were struck into silence and immobility.
Then, on tip toe, Mr. Stafford approached and peeped round the wing of
the arm-chair. He looked, and seemed blasted with astonishment; looked
again and made the rafters ring with his sonorous laugh, till the
apprehensive landlord in the passage and the trembling dame in the bar
were comforted and reassured by the genial sound.
The high feminine trill of Mistress Kitty's musical mirth rang in
sweetly with his.
"Oh, Kitty Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs!" gasped Mr. Stafford, shook his
finger at her, felt blindly for a support, and rolled up against Sir
Jasper.
The baronet straightway fell into an opportunely adjacent chair and
there remained--his legs extended with compass stiffness, his eyes
starting with truly bovine bewilderment--staring at the rosy visage,
the plump little figure, that now emerged from the inglenook.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" faintly murmured Stafford. And with a fresh breath
he was off again. "Aha ha ha! for an ox, my Jasper, thou hast started
on a lovely wild goose chase--as friend O'Hara might say." While:
"Mercy on us!" rippled the lady. "I protest, 'tis the drollest scene.
Oh, Sir Jasper, Sir Jasper, see what jealousy may bring a man to!"
"Musha, it's neither head nor tail I can make of the game," said
O'Hara, "but sure it's like an angel choir to hear you laugh again, me
darling."
The guileless gentleman approached his mistress as he spoke, and
prepared to encircle her waist. But with a sudden sharpness she
whisked herself from his touch.
"Pray, sir," she said, "remember how we stand to each other! If I
laugh 'tis with relief to know myself safe."
"Safe?" he echoed with sudden awful misgiving.
"Aye," said she, and spoke more tartly for the remorseful smiting of
her own heart, as she marked the change in his face. "You would seem
to forget, sir, that you have carried me off by violence--treacherously
seized me with your hired ruffians." Her voice grew ever shriller, as
certain rumours, which her expectant ears had already caught
approaching, now grew quite unmistakable without, and hasty steps
resounded in the passage. "Oh, Mr. O'Hara, you have cruelly used me!"
cried the lady. "Oh, Sir Jasper, oh, Mr. Stafford, from what a fate
has your most unexpected presence here to-night thus opportunely saved
me!"
At this point she looked up and gave a scream of most intense
astonishment: for there, in the doorway, stood my Lord Verney; and,
over his shoulder, peered the white face of Captain Spicer, all
puckered up with curiosity.