_In this same Her Ladyship’s mount is shot
dead under her in Epstowe Forest, and
she makes off on Tom Kidde’s horse._
This young gentleman now stood looking from a window of his uncle’s
house, upon all the dewy leafing beauty of the Park at May. His brow was
knit, his lips tight shut, his hand amid his ruffles clenched.
At the table sat Kennaston, inky-fingered, scribbling; eyes now rolling
to the ceiling, now roving hither and yon.
“Ah!” sighs this one. “If the critics do not find this canto to their
taste, may I be damned!”
“You’re like to go to Court to the Devil, I’m thinking then, dear lad,”
speaks de Bohun over his shoulder.
“Fame! Fame!” cries the young poet, pushing back in his chair, wig awry
and quill poised in air. “I’ll hunt thee to my dying hour, and if thou
escap’st me then, ’twill all be Lady Diana’s fault.”
“How’s that?” asks Percy, with, however, but small ring of interest in
his voice.
“Oh!” exclaimed Peg’s twin, “the minx mocks me! ’Tis Monday, kindness
and all smiles, to wake on Tuesday for indifference; pouts on Wednesday;
lure-me-ons o’ Thursday; forgetfulness for Friday; radiance for
Saturday, and all a-jumble, sweets-and-frowns! showers! sunshine! what
you will!—and will not!—for my Sunday fare.”
Percy sighs and smiles.
“Percy, sometimes I think Diana does love you!”
“No, Sir, never. We’re like brother and sister, nothing else, save my
uncle’s absurd, obstinate (now-cured) whim, since childhood, to match
his heir with Brookwood’s heiress. Odzooks! Ken, you’re like every other
swain that ever sighed, always looking for a rival to be jealous of!
Lady Di cares for you; an you doubted it before, ’tis time to take up
hope, since you are asked to Brookwood for a visit, and go popping off
to-night, with me left home to think alone on Peggy.”
“Zounds! Sir, ’tis not you only that’s thinking of her!” cries the young
man rising and crossing to the fire. “But, what would you! if I call out
the bell-man, publish her disappearance in the newspapers; get word to
my father and my mother; what comes of’t all, but scandal? and like as
not dad an apoplexy, and My Lady mother a set of fits and a death-bed!”
“Ken, I’m a damned fool ever to stop inside of doors or to cease pacing
streets, haunting inns, shadowing Sir Robin McTart, until I find her!”
“Fie, Sir, if she’s gone off with Sir Robin McTart, ’tis, I promise you,
with a wedding-ring on her finger, and not else! An she loves him,
what’s to be said or done, if he’s her lawful lord?”
“Naught. I myself went down to Kennaston yesterday. I said nothing to
you, Ken,” he adds, noting the other’s surprised and reproachful start,
with a hand upon his junior’s shoulder.
“I thought I’d not interrupt the epic and your frenzies about Lady Di,
with my troubles.”
“Well, what news of Peg? Any?” asks her twin anxiously.
“None. I saw Chockey, and only got from her what Grigson had, the
positive assurance that her mistress had gone up to London. ‘Of her own
free will?’ I asked. ‘Yes, Sir Percy,’ said she. ‘Alone?’ I inquired.
‘No, Sir Percy,’ was her answer, nor could I force, frighten, or buy the
baggage into any further confidence. She did beg of me, however, seek
out Her Ladyship, if I could, and find how she fared.”
“Gad’s life, Sir! She has eloped. ’Tis clear as crystal!”
“One thing more, I asked Chock: Had Her Ladyship money in her purse?
‘Lawk, Sir Percy! cried she, ‘two hundred pounds I know of!’”
“‘Two hundred pounds!’” repeats Peg’s twin in vast amazement. “’Tis sure
more’n she ever saw before in our whole lives put together. Oh, the
girl’s safely wedded, Sir, beyond a doubt!”
“Sir!” says Percy, sitting at the table, with his head low in his hands.
“The blackguard’s won her from me!”
“I fear so, Sir.” The two men’s hands meet and grasp in the silent
fashion of their sex: ofttimes more eloquent than any words e’er
speeched.
“Would I had made a hole in his heart that night in Lark Lane!” cried
Sir Percy next.
“Sir Robin’s nimble, Sir, and knows a trick or two with steel, as well
as dice.”
“Aye: a gallant every inch; ’tis for that I hate him all the more; and
yet, Ken, sometimes, lad, when I’ve been a-staring at him from afar,
I’ve caught something in his countenance resembling Peg, and it’s that’s
made me halt like a chit at provoking of him further.”
Kennaston nods. “Aye: I’ve remarked it; but held my peace, Percy, for
’tis said man and wife often grow to look alike, and I doubt not,
sometimes begin after the same pattern.”
Sir Percy sighs again: turns up the room with drooped lids; in silence
getting that grip upon his soul which noblest natures insist on with
themselves, even in crises like his. ’Tis a bitter battle, closer fought
and quicker, too, than any won or lost with swords and guns. The
struggle’s writ upon his face as he goes; but when he comes his
victory’s writ there too.
“Kennaston,” says he, very quiet and off-hand, “I’m thinking I’ll go to
the Colonies, to Virginia.”
“What! no!” ejaculates the poet, placing a hand on either of his
friend’s shoulders.
“Yes, Ken, dear lad, I could not live in England without her; perhaps
yonder, over the sea, in the new land that’s growing up, I may learn to
lead a new, better life, just for her sake that’s lost to me forever. At
the least I can strive, at such a distance, to serve my country and my
King like a man—until the end I’ll pray for comes.”
Kennaston turns off, with tears in his eyes.
“Mostly,” says he brokenly, “were not Peggy my twin, I’d be in a ripe
mood for a-cursing of her! When, Percy?” asks he, after a pause.
“As soon as may be,” is the reply. “I’ve the promise of a commission by
my uncle’s influence! Come, come, lad o’ my heart,” laughs he through
his own misty eyes. “The wind’s not in my ship’s sails yet. I promised
Mr. Brummell for his expedition to Ivy Dene for the morrow, and I’ll
hardly be ready in all points to get under way before you’re back in
town from your visit to Brookwood; whence I foresee you’ll fly with
Diana’s ‘yes’ betwixt her kiss on your cheek.”
’Twas now Mr. Brummell’s famous and long-talked-about party to Ivy Dene
this very next day that dawned.
Now, Her Ladyship had vowed to herself that, come what might, she would
avoid this, even did Fate keep her in London. ’Twas no part of her
program, although she could do it as well as any sporting squire, to
make for her future any such memory as riding a horse astride for thirty
miles out and back, in the company a half-score of gentlemen must
furnish; yet, so is each of us rather the creature of circumstance than
will, that the hour appointed found Peg mounted on a gray with blood in
his veins, and a-pacing down Piccadilly to the White Horse beside Beau
Brummell’s bay.
She could not, with Sir Robin’s murderous pact in her perpetual view,
make up her mind to omit a company that should include Sir Percy.
It seemed to her that any day spent by him out of her sight might prove
fatal; that Sir Robin’s hirelings might conceive it better to their
purpose to put an end to their intended victim before the Sunday. So,
aching with an insane but not unnatural impulse to pull rein and confess
all; burning with shame to remember ’twas of Lady Diana’s sweetheart she
was thinking; mortified beyond belief every time her saddle grazed her
breeches; intent lest an unsuspected sword should flash from the
hedge-rows, the sheep-cotes, or the shadows of Epstowe Forest, which
they traversed on their way; My Lady Peggy, wishing amidst all this that
she had never come to town, yet contrived to display a very cheerful
mien, to laugh as loud as she dared, keeping her high notes cautiously
to herself, as she had in her speech ever since the night, as Sir Robin,
she had made her first appearance in Lark Lane—to join in jest, quip,
prank, such as a gay cavalcade of jovial gentlemen were then wont to
indulge in.
Such are some of the strange vicissitudes incident to being that most
amazingly delicious compound, a wilful and withal true-hearted woman.
As Mr. Brummell had planned, they halted for refreshment at the Merry
Rabbit at Market Ossory, and left, after a game of bowls on the green,
to pursue their way. Percy lingered a bit in the rear: truth to tell,
his reflections were none of the gayest, and the presence of the
supposed Sir Robin McTart, and the conclusion, which, together with Ken,
he had been forced to reach, that Lady Peggy had run off with the
Baronet, did not by any means conspire to the lightening of his spirits.
As he watched his presumed rival, heard the ringing laugh, the brilliant
jest: noted the careless air, and thought of this cavalier as Lady
Peggy’s lord, his choler knew no bounds, and it appeared to him that,
come what might, he must invent cause of quarrel, and one or the other
of ’em be left cold on the field.
“Why,” a thousand times he asked himself, “this mystery regarding her
marriage? Why not have wedded Sir Robin from her father’s home, and with
her father’s blessing, since,” Sir Percy reluctantly admitted, “no fault
could be found with so fine a young gentleman; and his fortune, he knew
to be considerable.”
He was aware that Her Ladyship was romantic to a degree, and he could
but decide that this predilection had caused her to elope and to
preserve the matter in a wrapping of secrecy for a time; no doubt even
now from her retirement looking forward to the hour when she should
emerge as Lady McTart!
Sir Percy gritted his teeth together and struck his spurs so deep that
his horse gave a plunge which brought him up, neck and neck, with the
gray of the supposed Baronet, and the black of Mr. Chalmers.
“To the rescue, Sir Percy!” cried this one jocularly. “Your assistance I
beg, and the loan of your wits in our argument.”
“With all my heart!” answers Percy, scenting a possible chance to worst
his rival, even in a battle of words. “What’s the subject?”
“A truce to ’t!” exclaims the Beau, with an expressive shake of his head
at Mr. Chalmers, who, however, seldom notes any obstacle to the pleasure
of his present moment.
“No truce at all, Mr. Brummell!” answers he gaily. “’Tis—”
“’Tis nothing whatever, Sir Percy,” interrupts Lord Escombe, putting his
hand on Chalmers’s rein, and adding in an undertone: “Gadzooks! man,
hold your peace. The matter’s like tow and tinder betwixt Percy and
McTart.”
“’Pon my soul, Gentlemen!” now cries Percy, “I insist upon Jack’s being
allowed to proceed with his remarks. If he wants my counsels, they’re
his. Come, Sir, speak.”
“’Tis but this,” says Mr. Chalmers. “I say to Sir Robin that since the
world’s busy with rumors of his secret marriage to Lady Peggy Burgoyne;
since as I learn (by my man, who had it at the gate of the very best
authority—Gad! Sirs, ’tis a fact, even if we don’t relish it, the gist
of our gossip comes from below stairs, up!) that Lady Peggy is from
home, her father believing her in Kent at her godmother’s!” Mr. Chalmers
smiles, “her mother being in York, believing her safe at Kennaston, I
say, My Lords and Gentlemen, it behooves Sir Robin confide the matter to
his best friends, and give them chances to congratulate him and the
Lady. Have I the right of’t, Percy, yes or no?”
Percy is silent for a moment: it seems to him a desecration of the
sweet, modest and womanly girl he has so long adored, thus to hear even
her name, much less a discussion of her most private matters, made into
mirthful subject on a morning’s ride.
His anger, too, is great that the man whose name is coupled with hers
has not already put a stop to such a conversation, even were it at the
point of the sword.
Shall he, here and now, so reply to Mr. Chalmers as shall breed an
instant retort from Sir Robin, and a challenge on the spot? The wild
thought even flashes through his brain that Sir Robin might, by the
grace of God! be left dead on the ground, and that some time in the dim
future he might win Peggy back to himself.
But, with a tightening rein, he checks himself, as well as his horse, as
he answers.
“Mr. Chalmers, the Lady you name is one whom I honor most deeply, and it
seems to me if she has seen fit to go into seclusion, or to marry
secretly, that, while I may wish to God it had been in open church! I
must continue to respect her preferences, until she elects to change
them;” with which, breaking the little pause of silence which follows,
Sir Percy gallops ahead, joining Mr. Brummell, who has put himself
quickly out of the commotion he had foreseen as likely to arrive.
Meantime, it may be correctly imagined that Her Ladyship, with all her
sex’s exquisite ingenuity at plaguing itself whenever it possibly can,
had seized upon those words of Sir Percy’s most easily twisted into a
means of self-torture.
“I wish to God it had been in open church!” instantly stuck itself in
her thoughts beside “Consents;” the two forming just that species of
flagellation which ladies so situated in mind are wont to inflict upon
themselves.
The supposed Sir Robin, from this on, until the arrival of the party at
Ivy Dene, became taciturn, even morose, and not a syllable could be got
from him in answer to the wildest gibes.
Her eyes intent upon Sir Percy, who now kept to the fore with his host,
My Lady Peggy, on the keen lookout for the possible assassin, and to the
tune of “consents,” and its running-mate, “I would to God it had been in
open church!” put in a very dolorous twenty miles; but, on dismounting
at Mr. Brummell’s doorstep, she endeavored to infuse a little joyousness
into her looks and speech.
Indeed, ’twas difficult; yet no more so to-day than any other since she
had been coerced by circumstances into an acceptance of the Beau’s
hospitality. Every mouthful of bread and meat Peggy ate well-nigh choked
her, as she remembered ’twas meant for Sir Robin McTart. She felt
herself a trickster, a villain of the deepest dye, and yet saw no way
out of her usurped character with honor and repute; no way of keeping in
it save by the deeper dyeing of her soul in sin, which she promised
herself, and heaven, to expiate as soon as Percy should be safe from Sir
Robin’s men.
The afternoon was spent as had been planned; the country cook’s dinner
was voted a perfect success: Mr. Chalmers, slightly raised by wine, even
going so far as to send her down, with his compliments, his favorite
ruby heart-pin: when, on the spot, not a gentleman present but whipped
out a jewel from ruffle, finger, pocket or fob, and Peggy herself tying
’em up in a pocket-napkin laced with Brussels and perfumed like the
civet-cat, sent them down to the astonished lass in the kitchen.
A game of cards was in order after the repast: a tilt at politics: a
wager on the question of tea in the Colonies; Lady Peggy and Sir Percy
keeping, by the grace of each, well apart in all these encounters; and
at twelve o’clock, just as the moon was rising behind a bank of splendid
star-fringed clouds, Mr. Brummell and his guests set forth on their
homeward road.
The beauty of the night was such as soothes and casts its own mantle of
peace over even those unquiet spirits which may be abroad.
It reminded Lady Peggy, as she rode along, of just such another when she
and Percy had wandered up and down together in the weedy gardens at
Kennaston. Of that identical night Percy also was thinking, and of his
wilful Lady’s bright sallies, quick smiles, frowns; yea, even of one
little touch of her red lips, light as thistledown, which now he seemed
to feel the ghost of, on his forehead.
The cavalcade had left the highway some distance behind; the moon was
fast being overtaken by the clouds whence she had, an hour or more ago,
emerged; the dews fell thick, and the scent of the hawthorn was sweet in
the air as they plunged into Epstowe Forest.
“Ah, Gentlemen,” cried out Mr. Brummell, snapping his whip, “by Gad,
Sirs, what a night for Tom Kidde and his merry men! the skies dark, the
moon playin’ hide and seek, fifteen watches and purses, and as many
rings, pins and seals between us as you left not at Ivy Dene with my
cook Elizabeth!”
“Ha! ha! ha! No fears of Tom Kidde, an he knows our caliber, jumping out
upon us!” laughs Lord Wootton.
“’Slife! Sir, he’s the sort of highwayman to jump out on the best mettle
that strides horse-flesh or carries gold. The young devil’s afraid of
nothing that breathes, and has been the terror of travelers now these
three or four years gone,” says Vane.
“He’s not above one-and-twenty, smooth-faced as a girl, those say who’ve
caught a glimpse of him under his mask; dresses like a macaroni, voiced
like a choir-singer, and nimble as an Indian monkey!”
“Frequents he this neighborhood?” queries Lady Peggy, who at mention of
the word “highwayman” has tightened her rein, clapped a hand on her
holster, and felt her heart thump, as she involuntarily connects it with
possible danger to Percy.
“That he does,” said Mr. Chalmers. “His den, or one of ’em’s somewhere
in the depths of Epstowe; and no one can tell when or where he’s like to
turn up next.”
“When did he turn up last?” says Sir Wyatt, laughing.
“I can tell you,” returns Vane. “’Twas about Candlemas. I was down at
home on a visit from town, when the news came, almost frightening my
mother out of her wits, and setting the maids a-shivering like so many
poppies in a storm. Tom Kidde had pounced on Lord Brookwood not a mile
from his own gates, lifted him off his mount in the politest fashion
imaginable, rifled His Lordship’s pockets, appropriated his weapons, and
ridden off on his victim’s horse, leaving His Lordship tied to a tree at
the roadside, where he was found by Biggs, the J.P., the next morning,
a-bellowin’ and a-cursin’ like a wild bull.”
A hearty laugh greets Mr. Vane’s description.
“Yes, but that ain’t all of’t, My Lords and Gentlemen,” continues he.
“By no means!” cries Beau Brummell, out of his fit of hilarity. “I
recall now, that I rode over from Lauriston Castle, where I was
visiting, that very morning, and heard the adventure from Brookwood
himself. I fancy he had the laugh, or will have it some day, on Tom, or
some of his men, for the stolen mare was none other than His Lordship’s
famous ‘Homing Nell.’”
“Is it possible!” exclaims Sir Percy, “the mare that’s been taken off a
hundred miles, let loose, and finds her way home again; the mare that’s
been sold and ridden fifty miles away, and then, when she felt a hand at
her mouth she could master, has taken the bit between her teeth, and the
one in the saddle’s only sometimes been able to keep his seat, and let
her take him straight back whence she came?”
“The very same ‘Homing Nell.’ Brookwood’s sure of her getting back
sooner or later,” says the Beau.
“They’ll never catch Tom, though,” cries Escombe.
“If they do,” remarks Vane, “he’ll hang not two hours after he’s bagged;
his death-warrant’s been lying signed in Mr. Biggs’s pocket-book any
time this twelvemonth; and there’s still a gibbet standing on the hill
above Brook-Armsleigh Village!”
“Zounds! Sirs!” exclaims Mr. Chalmers, “what a life ’t must be, tho’;
sleep o’ days, wake o’ nights, prowling under the branches, harkening
for game from dusk till dawn, all seasons the same, one’s heart in one’s
mouth, till the hoof’s heard, and then a masking dash, a brawl, a thrift
quick as the lightning’s flash; a corpse or two, and your purse the
heavier by as many guineas as the game’s had under cover—and all to the
tune of the owl’s cry, and I doubt not for some sweet Maid Marian’s
sake!”
“’Slife! hear the boy!” cries Mr. Brummell. “One would think him sired
by a Jack Sheppard rather than by the gentlest Sir that ever lived. For
your froward tendencies, Sir, you shall pay a penalty.”
“Yea, yea! a penalty! a penalty!” cry they all.
“In what kind?” returns Jack, waving his hat over his head.
“A song! a song!” they answer.
“Which one?” asks he, nothing loath, for his lungs are lusty and his
reputation for singing above the ordinary.
“What you will,” they answer.
“Well, then, what say you to ‘Lady Betty Takes the Air,’ since all can
join me in the chorus?”
“Good!”
“Percy,” says Jack, “you’ve a pretty pipe in your throat; give me the
key, will you? not too high, you rascal, I’m not vainglorious at my
music. So, and, so—there,” as Percy does as he is asked.
When all the May is deck’d about
With hawthorn bud and blow;
When pinkly shows the heather’s tip,
And harebells nod a-row—
Lady Betty takes the air,
Sing ah fa, la-la-la!
With a rush hat on her hair:
Sing ah fa, la-la-la!
When all the brown earth thrills to green,
When rivers laugh and sing;
When lark and thrush cajole and coax,
And all the wood’s a-wing—
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
When Corydon most sad, forlorn,
With wrinkled hose, distraught,
All flouted by his worshiped Fair,
Walks forth as one that’s daft,
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
When, at the turn-stile next the park,
The sad swain stops to sigh—
“No lady ever lived so dear
As she for whom I’d die!”
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
When, as the sun walks up the glade,
And as the milkmaid hies
Across the paddock with her pails,
And as the lark doth rise—
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
Cries Betty, flaunting past, “Oh fie!
A gallant all unkempt,
Such ungenteel and woful sight
Kind fortune me exempt!”
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
When speaking thus, the May-breeze blew
Her rush hat o’er the stile,
And Corydon caught quick the gaze,
And swift his sigh turned smile,
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
Thus, when the May is deck’d about
With hawthorn bud and blow,
Sweet Betty ties her hat-strings fast,
A gallant in the bow!
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
’Twas ever thus, dear maids and men,
Whene’er ye walk abroad—
’Tis e’er the little breeze that blows
Each lady to her lord!
Lady Betty takes the air, etc.
Every one joins in the chorus with a hearty good will; all save Her
Ladyship. Peggy dares not lift her woman’s voice, lest Escombe at right,
or Wootton at her left, shall hear its most unmannish lilt. She mouths
the words, though, and listens, as she has many a time before, to Sir
Percy’s tones, and wonders if the sentiment is making him think of the
Lady Diana.
The Lady Diana, however, is very far from Sir Percy’s imagination. He
has been moodily ruminating on the possibilities of Tom Kidde (the most
renowned desperado in all England of that day) suddenly bursting upon
the party, and leaving a corpse behind him—that of Sir Robin McTart! He
has been picturing to himself the profound pleasure it would give him to
assist in fetching Sir Robin to the nearest church for decent burial,
and the almost hilarious joy that would be his in attending his rival’s
body to the grave! These were, according to the strict code, most
murderous thoughts, and yet how pleasant, if how altogether unprofitable
they were also.
Mr. Chalmers is in the midst of his last verse, his voice echoing into,
and back, from the depths of the great green wood; there is not a wisp
of the moon visible by this, and no light, save the halo from her beauty
which lines and rims the vast masses of clouds above them.
Peggy is listening to the song; she hears it well: also the crunch of
her horse’s hoofs on the narrow path; also, the crackle of the fresh
twigs as they snap before the advance; and too, so sharp are her ears,
the sleepy cheep of some disturbed bird in its nest, and, what else?
What is this curious stealthy stir, far-off, and creeping nearer in the
wood?
And, hark! Peggy puts her hand to her ear to hear a subdued whistle,
sweet, tuneful, underbreath, but patent to her sense, and too, to Sir
Percy’s.
Before either can move, or, indeed, had as yet gathered the impulse of
even self-defense, into the midst of Mr. Chalmers and the rest, with
their chorus, dashes a company of riders in masks.
A shot, low-aimed, and merely intended as a slight warning of what may
be expected, should occasion demand, strikes the ground at Her
Ladyship’s right.
With remorse and reparation at his heart-strings—’tis the kind of man
who could be but generous to his worst enemy—Sir Percy’s horse is flung
betwixt the supposed Sir Robin and the band.
“Good evening, My Lords and Gentlemen,” says the leader, in a voice like
a lute. “I thank you heartily for coming my way! Purses and watches,
merry Sirs, jewels, trinkets, snuff-boxes, if of gold, pins, fobs,
seals, these are all the toll I demand, and shall be forced to collect,
if you show any disposition to deny.”
It might he wisely argued that, while this speech was being made, any
gentleman might have either run the highwayman through, or put an ounce
of lead into his heart, but the fact of the matter was, each gentleman
found himself face to face with another gentleman who held a blunderbuss
up to within three inches of his nose.
My Lady’s first thought had been that Sir Robin’s men had not waited for
the Sunday night to come, but presently she recognized the truth, and,
stung by the fact that Sir Percy had put himself between her and danger,
she was the only one of the whole company who stirred in her saddle
other than to do the bidding of Tom Kidde.
While the rest were busily engaged in emptying their treasures, she,
making feint to do the same, says very low and tauntingly to Sir Percy:
“Had I but one to show fight with me, I’d ne’er give in to these
scoundrels.”
“As soon done as said, Sir Robin,” whispers Percy. “No man can say I’m
his lesser in courage!” with which he wrests his bridle from the
blackguard whose hand’s upon it, whips out his sword with one hand,
picks out his pistol with the other, grips his reins in his teeth, and
strikes with steel and shot, both at once.
Peg’s his match, imitating him with such a will as sets every gentleman
of ’em a-shooting, a-lunging and a-cursing with all the arms and breath
he’s got; and sets the robbers for a second to their wits, for they are
not used to any sort of encounter, save one that’s terror-stricken and
submissive in the opponent.
’Tis a bit of a mêlée quite in the dark; slashing and pounding betwixt
the branches: now a man unhorsed, anon up again; shots resounding,
powder flashing, until in about ten minutes or less the chief makes a
plunge for Sir Percy, crying out,
“So ’twas you said ‘fight,’ was’t! Have a care; no man can defy Tom
Kidde and live to tell it!”
“Nay!” shouts Her Ladyship, with spurs all inches into the gray’s sides,
making him rear as she puts herself between Percy and the highwayman,
“’twas I said ‘fight’!”
Whizz! and a ball intended for Sir Percy strikes the gray dead under
her.
Whizz! and her ball strikes Tom Kidde from his mount.
In less time than it takes to tell it, Peg was straight in the
highwayman’s saddle; he was picked up by two of his men, bleeding, set
before one of ’em, and off: My Lords and Gentlemen find themselves once
more alone in the midst of Epstowe Forest, a-crawling about on their
hands and knees a-gathering up their spilled guineas and trinkets by
flash of tinder-box.
Sir Percy, trying to explain to them who had been the means of their
recovering their valuables and of putting the desperadoes to flight,
cries out:
“I tell you! we owe’t all to Sir Robin here! ’Slife, Gentlemen, I’d not
have ventured to think of resistance had it not been for him. ’Twas he
said, close in my ear, ‘fight,’ and by Gad! Sirs, he’s lost more’n any
of us; the horse shot under him.”
“The gray’s well lost teaching Tom Kidde he can’t terrify all the men in
England,” answers the Beau from his sprawling search after his diamond
snuff-box.
“Ho, Sir Robin! Sir Robin! Sir Robin!” Sir Wyatt shouts it out, and the
rest of the company take it up with a long, mellow cadence that echoes
for a mile.
“Answer man, for, by the faith, if we can’t pledge you here in anything
but a lap of May-dew out of a primrose leaf, we’ll drink you such a
bumper, an we reach the White Horse, as never was filled before!
London’ll toast you at every dinner-table in Mayfair. Odzooks, Sir, were
you the fashion yesterday, what will you be to-morrow!” This from
Escombe.
“Where is Sir Robin?” asks Percy. “He was beside me not five seconds
since, but now, by my tinder, nor yet by the coming dawn, can I descry
him,” shading his eyes with his hand and peering about, for of a truth
’tis close to four o’clock, and, notwithstanding the heavy clouds, the
east begins to thrill with the touch of day.
“Robin! Sir Robin! Ho, now! Think not to play a trick on us and
presently spring from a greenwood tree,” says Wootton.
“Sir Robin,” exclaims Percy loudly, “I pray you answer and leave not
your friends to imagine evil.”
“Tut, tut, ‘evil’,” puffs the Beau, rising from his knees. “Evil’ll
never happen to him. Zounds! but my legs ache! He’s laughing in his
sleeve now, hard by; Robin’s not one to court notice or praise—as modest
a youth as I ever beheld.”
“Worthy of Lady Peggy Burgoyne even, I suppose?” says Mr. Chalmers
mischievously, as he adjusts his recovered fob. “I could embrace him for
the rendering of me back my watch, but I think him a fool to eschew good
company and make home alone to town.”
“Jack,” says Percy, low, “I like not his quitting of us. ’Twas too
sudden. I believe I’ll go a-hunting him,” pulling his rein as the
cavalcade once more prepared to start.
“Where?” asks Jack. “Bah! be not such a ninny; belike he’s off to his
Lady, to win kisses off her lips by the rehearsal of his prowess. An a
man chooses to flee me, I let him: do you the same, Percy; ’tis a good
advice, I promise you!”
“But suppose those devils attack him again when alone?” says this one,
not all reassured, as he and Jack linger a bit in the rear of their
companions.
“Go to the devil!” remarks Mr. Chalmers, blithely. “I’m for breakfast at
the White Horse, and for leavin’ the hero of the hour to eat his where
he sees fit. He’s safe enough.”
“I’ve a misgiving,” answers de Bohun, “and he risked his life for mine
to-night. I’ll strike off here to the west and join you when I find
him.”
“Good luck to you for a fool!” laughs Jack, putting spurs and going on
to tell this news to the others.
[Illustration: The instant that Lady Peggy...]
The instant that Lady Peggy felt herself in the highwayman’s saddle, she
knew from long acquaintance with every colt Bickers had bred, raised, or
broke, since she was six, that her wrists had met their match. Before
she had time to utter a word, turn her head, or think, she felt the warm
flesh under her quiver with that recovering impulse which horsemen know
so well; that streak of untamed and untamable nature which lies, however
deep-hidden, in every four-foot that breathes, and which never fails to
spurt to the front when it gets exactly the right chance.
Peggy’s light, nay, by this, weak hand, now gave the big black its
chance, and with a snort, a toss of its head, and a vicious swell of its
sides, it laid back its ears, took the bit between its teeth as if it
had been a mess of oats, and reared a length on its forelegs: when,
finding its rider still on, it started on a run which Her Ladyship had
not the slightest power to check. All she could do was to keep her seat.
Like a flash, out of the forest on to the width of the heath, plume
waving, sword flapping, laces rippling, curls flying; the mare’s mane
slapping in her face; legs and arms and will all at work to stop the
beast or bring it into some sort of subjection. To no purpose. The black
head now low, as if picking up a scent from the turf it tore; now up, as
though snuffing its goal from afar, the mare skirted the heath, gained
the meadows; over hedges where the birds rose in flocks behind its
heels; ditches, where the muddy waters splashed over Her Ladyship’s
satin clothes: here a bolt into an orchard, leaving a ribbon a-hanging
on a limb; over the wall like a rocket, and, at breakneck gait, through
a hamlet, rousing the people out of their beds to peep at pane, and
wonder. Slap-dash into a pasture, scattering ewes and lambs like wool
before the wind, taking a five-bar into a common, thence to highway;
scampering a footbridge to leave it shivered behind them, and all Peg’s
thought just a brave prayer to be kept alive, so that she might not fail
of foiling Sir Robin’s men Sunday night!
Where she was going, she knew not. Where she was, she had no smallest
idea when, as the sun looked over the long low line of horizon before
her, she with a shudder beheld a gibbet outlined against the morning
sky. The black gave a lunge that knocked her feet out of the stirrups
(quick in again), reared, whinnied like a devil, and, nose to ground,
now made her rider understand that up to the present she had done
nothing much in the way of speed, or of efforts at emptying the saddle.
Yet Her Ladyship stuck on, with flying colors, too, and no loss of
either wig, hat, weapon or will, and with grateful heart she now found
herself being spun across a magnificent park, where the deer fled before
her, it is true, but at the upper end of which she saw looming the
turrets and towers of a fine castle.
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]