_Wherein Her Ladyship slips leash of all mankind,
runs for her life, and finds goal in
the arms of Sir Robin McTart._
These were Peggy and the little Baronet. Her Ladyship, mind made up to
flee in the darkness, leaving six-pence on the table to pay for her
lodgings, even now stood, latch in hand, bundle once more under arm,
still a man, not having dared to change her garments.
Sir Robin lay ensconced betwixt the quilts; the realizing sense that his
mortal enemy, one who sought his life, who coveted His Lady—from whom he
was running away, to be veracious,—lay not many yards off him, seeming
to banish that restful repose that had seldom hitherto forsaken this
worthy and exemplary little person.
A mouse squeaked, and Sir Robin shivered; a beetle pattered across the
hearth, his hair stood on end.
Surely a footstep sounded in the hallway; the boards creaked; something
metallic struck against the panel of his door, and he sprang from his
couch and chattered to his sword.
Lady Peggy’s blade had struck the woodwork as she made her way
stealthily down in the darkness; while Sir Robin shook, she gained the
lower end of the hall but, not being acquainted with its ways and
turnings, above all, having forgot the two broad steps that cut the
straight road to the entrance in two, Her Ladyship, with much clanking
of her weapon on the brick flooring, fell sprawling; her bundle shooting
off into the unseen, she up on hands and knees, hither, yon, seeking it;
Sir Robin beating on his wainscot such a tattoo as was fit to wake the
dead, shrieking, from the safe shelter of the muffling pillows where he
huddled:
“Murder! Thieves! Ho there! Landlord! Tom! James! Ho there, I say! Help!
Help!”
Sir Percy, out of his four-post up-stairs in a flash, tinder struck,
door flung open; in night-rail and cap, with rapier drawn, hanger
uplifted, and—
“’Sdeath! What the devil is the matter!” cries he at top of lung. “Speak
or I’ll fire!” and down the stair he plunges to Sir Robin’s very sill.
This one, having successfully summoned those more doughty than himself
to cope with the supposed danger, now recognizing Sir Percy’s voice,
shivers and sweats as he cowers and pulls the counterpane over his head,
grasping his purse in his sharp little fingers; wisely never undoing of
his door.
“Speak or I’ll fire,” repeats Sir Percy, whose candle has been blown out
by the draught. He takes a few steps down the hallway where he hears the
curious scratching noise Her Ladyship is making as she distractedly
feels around for the bundle.
At last she grasps it and creeps up unwittingly to Sir Percy’s very
side; _de facto_ her arm grazes his as she now raises herself to a
standing posture, exactly as her lover, no answer being vouchsafed him,
pulls his trigger and the ball goes a-whizzing through Sir Robin’s door
panel and finds lodgement in the chimney bricks.
Peggy, her customary composure being much the worse for hunger and the
general excitement, jumps when the shot pops, and thus inadvertently now
palpably touches Percy’s elbow. He turns upon her and seizes her wrists
in a grip of steel; she, as tightly hugging the bundle under her armpit,
utters no sound, but wriggles and twists to such a purpose that she is
about to get free when her opponent renews his endeavors with an oath.
“Speak!” says he, “or I’ll brain you!” making to hold Peg’s two hands
prisoner in one of his, the while he may seize his rapier and put a
finish to the matter.
She does not speak, but to the scene jump now the heavy cumbrous
country-folk, rattled out of their deep slumber by Sir Percy’s ball and
no less by the piercing and prolonged shrieks of Sir Robin, each Colin
Clout and Dowsabel of ’em, armed with whatever they could catch; yet,
luckily for Her Ladyship, no one of them with sense enough to fetch a
candle.
“A light! a light! you damnable idiots!” cried Sir Percy, while Her
Ladyship makes a final twist to free herself, fruitless as before. She
feels her ebbing strength at its last pinch and feels, too, the bundle
loosening in her hold.
Then, as landlord stumbles to his tinder-box, amid an uproar from all
the travelers, especially the new made bride and her spouse, Peggy finds
herself let go, nay, almost thrust aside as her captor ejaculates
testily:
“Zounds! girl, why did you not proclaim your sex, and not leave me to
find it out by a long wisp of woman’s hair between my fingers? Lights!
Lights! I say! and we’ll get the fellow yet! He must be in the house,
for no one’s left it.”
Sir Percy has been for the moment meshed in his Lady’s long tresses,
which, in the skirmish, have broke leash of the bundle and dangle out
yard’s length.
For an instant she stands on the landing at bay. To unbolt the big door
and make an open dash for freedom would mean certain death; to turn up
therefrom and regain her chamber was her sole chance, and this must be
done before a light could be struck.
She wheeled around and rushed up the hall, up the stairs among the
clustering folk, nudging she knew not whom, skipped along the narrow
rear passage, and into her room before candle flames revealed to the
amazed company that neither bolt, bar, or latch had been disturbed, nor
anything in the house taken!
Even while they rummaged in the bar-room till, counted the forks and
spoons—pewter though they were, Her Ladyship, tying the luckless bundle
about her waist with a hastily cut bed-cord, cautiously opened the
casement, crawled out on the trellis, which unsteadied a bit beneath her
weight but did not break; clambered in and out the vines to the edge,
and then, lightly, thanks to her twin’s training, swung herself to the
ground clear, crept across the yard, leaped the stone wall, with a bound
and over; flew the width of the meadow; struck the lane, up to the high
road; by the moon, took a southerly course which she knew made for
Kennaston, and paused not much for breath until she had left a matter of
five miles betwixt her and the Queen and Artichoke.
It was coming three o’clock by this, and, all the little night winds
hushed, all the earth and trees and grasses, flowers, shrubs and weeds
expectant, vibrant of the nearing dawn, whose pink and beauteous herald
now looked over the hill-tops at the east, and put the lingering stars
to shame, and woke the little birds, and bade every drop of dew flash on
cup and blade; and all the things that breathe to grow and pulsate; to
thrill through all their veins with joy that still another day was born.
Her Ladyship too was glad, for, brave as she had been through all the
brief ordeal of her manhood, this last adventure had broken her spirit a
bit, and hunger and fatigue had sadly weakened her flesh. As the lark
mounted, singing to the now risen sun, she struck in a bit from the road
and began an endeavor to calculate how far she might be from Kennaston
village, or from any place familiar to her. But it was vain to
speculate. Peggy, in all her cross-country rides, could not place the
spot in which she now found herself.
Food was what she needed most and she came out into the open, shading
her eyes with her hand and looking everywhere about for a curl of smoke
that might guide her to a cottage. But no friendly film greeted her, and
her hand fell listless at her side.
Hark! The tinkle of a bell, the soft lowing of a cow; not far off
either. She ran a piece up the road and presently descried the herd
huddling at the pasture bars waiting for their milking, yet no maid nor
man in sight, no milking-stool nor pail nor cup, only the soft inviting
lowing of the kine. Her bundle still tied about her waist, Her Ladyship
let down the top bars, edged through, off with her once splendid but now
much tarnished hat, set it under the nearest cow, knelt, and presently
had the cock full of as fine foaming milk as one might wish to see. She
rose and drank thankfully, rubbing the cow’s nose in gratitude; then;
amid the concerted cries of the herd, she made off, a little refreshed,
still keeping her southerly course; still haphazarding her way, for no
house came in sight.
After a matter of a dozen miles, and now reaching the edge of a woods,
with the tower of a Castle just sticking up out of the horizon for her
only beacon, Peggy halted and, the refreshment of the milk having been
by this exhausted, the tears forced their way to her eyes and even
ploughed two small furrows the length of her cheeks, cupping in the
dimple of her chin, and splashing at last, on her much rumpled Mechlin
lace cravat.
“Bah!” cried she. “I weep only because I am hungry. I am not afraid.
Odzooks! She that has had the hemp about her neck to be strung up for a
highwayman must not fear to encounter one of her own ilk,” and Her
Ladyship essays to laugh as she plunges into the wood.
It proves a harmless, peaceful, if somewhat devious neighborhood, where
an occasional rabbit scurries over the dry leaves of last autumn’s
falling, and where a large company of rooks are holding a caucus, but
’tis interminable; and Peggy’s legs are not of steel, it seems, but of
that lusty flesh and blood and bone which, when made to do duty fasting,
now these twenty hours, begin to give out. Her head, too, spins, the
knot of her cravat seems to choke her as she loosens it; the weight of
the bundle appears like twenty stone at the least about her waist, and
she cuts the bed-cord and lets it drop, just for a few moments’ ease,
she tells herself, as, at last, the other side of the forest is gained
and she beholds a wide stretch of downs and naught but the elusive tower
of the distant Castle, appearing farther away even than at first.
What common can this be?
Once again she shades her blood-shot eyes and stares up at the sky. In
crossing the woods, she must have struck mistakenly to the west. The sun
is nearing the set, and Peggy now knows she has come to Farnham Heath
where, report has it, some of the boldest cut-throats in the country
rule the roost.
Shall she start to cross it? Kennaston Village lies only ten miles on
t’other side of it. That will-o’-the-wisp tower? that castle yonder? yes
’tis home! and she such a dullard as not to have mistrusted it before!
She will push on. Why not? What has she, forsooth, to tempt any thief,
unless he took her for ransom.
Well, let him, since Percy de Bohun at this very moment, in all
liklihood, kneels at the feet of Lady Diana; if highwaymen want to bear
her off, why should she complain? And just then the tinkle of the little
brook at the wayside beckons in Her Ladyship’s ear, the Castle tower
appears to he dancing up and down against the sky; the two stark trees,
yonder on the heath, are surely turning somersaults; the bundle drags
all forgotten at her heels, and presently lies in the tall grasses which
she threaded on her way to the brook. Her head swam, ten thousand
blunderbusses seemed to be firing off inside of it; she pulled off her
wig and threw it far from her; she unbuttoned her coat and waistcoat,
and drew her cloak in a twist about her; she staggered, caught at an
elder; it swayed with her to the water, as she fell swooning with her
thirsty lips just in touch of the sparkling bubbles; her wan face
shining in the glint of sunshine, the whole round world and all the men
and women in it quite forgot, even her sword, unbuckled with the
bed-cord, now lay glinting its jewels in the sedges half a dozen rods
away.
A pair of robins eyed her from the bushes, a bee swerved and swung above
her mouth; the minnows darted next her cheek, but My Lady did not wake
for any or all of these. She lay there motionless until the sun had gone
down and all the sweet scents and drowsy sounds and whirrs and flutters
of twilight had come up; until a fine coach with four horses and two
postilions came prancing and pawing at a great rate of speed out of the
wood to the heath. Until a little weazened fine gentleman, who had dozed
in his bed until long past noon for fear of encountering a certain other
gentleman, had risen leisurely, dined with relish, set out from the
Queen and Artichoke only after being assured that the other gentleman
had gone off on a ruined horse back to Garratt Lane in the hopes of
obtaining a suitable mount, which same was not to be had short of the
ten mile return; until the little gentleman, then, thrusting his face
out of his coach window as the vehicle came to a sudden standstill,
spoke:
“Is this the heath?” he asks with blinking eyes and a shiver.
“Yes, Sir Robin, Farnham Heath, Sir!” answers one of the postilions.
“Your pleasure, Sir Robin?” asks the second man respectfully, quieting
his horses.
“Well,” returns the little Baronet, “if you think can gallop across
faster than those devils could overtake us, I say, proceed. If not—” he
glances back over his shoulder.
To tell the truth, the gentleman from Kent considered himself as betwixt
two very impending fires, and, ’tis safe to say, he dreaded Sir Percy de
Bohun’s possibility at his back as much, if not more, than he did the
robbers in front of him.
“We’re in the best condition, Sir,” returned the man, “and fifty minutes
ought to take us out of all chances of danger.”
“Unless,” replies the master, again casting an apprehensive eye to the
rear, “they might close in on us from behind.”
“No fear, Sir,” cries the lackey, “our pistols are loaded and cocked;
with your own rapier, pistols and the blunderbuss, Sir Robin, we
should—”
“What’s that?” exclaims the second man, eyes bulging, as with the handle
of his whip he points to the fallen figure by the brookside.
“Zounds!” cries the first, rising in his seat to peer.
“’Sdeath! Damnation!” squeaks Sir Robin, pulling down the coach-sash.
“On with ye, you devils! On, I say!” thumping impatiently on the pane
with his signet ring.
“No fear, Sir, no fear, Sir Robin!” exclaims the second man, jumping to
the ground and inspecting Her Ladyship. “It’s only a corp.”
“Are you sure?” opening the door cautiously. “Sure?”
“Aye, Sir Robin, a quality corp, Sir. Mayhap shot down by them vagabones
out of the heath. Had I best see if there’s any life left in the young
gentleman, Sir?”
Sir Robin descends from his coach, a pistol in one hand, a drawn rapier
in the other.
“Keep an eye on the lookout, James,” he whispers to the postilion who
remains in his seat, and the Baronet minces in and out of the tall
grasses, shaking the dew daintily from his sprawling feet, until he
gains the spot, where his man kneels above the prostrate form.
“Ugh!” says he, turning aside his head in a species of disgust, “I never
could abide the sight of the dead.”
’Twas the very first time in his life he’d ever had a chance to behold
such!
“He ain’t quite cold yet, Sir Robin,” says the postilion. “There’s a
flicker to his eye-lids, Sir, look!”
The Baronet looks; out of his hands tumble rapier and pistol.
“’Slife!” he cries, down on his knees, feeling at Her Ladyship’s pulse,
pulling his flask from his pocket and trying vainly to pour the liquor
between the firmly shut lips.
As he tries, the little gentleman’s wits work nimbly, which they could
do on occasions, and, not stopping even to wonder at his discovery, only
to accept instantly as a fact that his Lady had been struck down while
pursuing him, he is so overjoyed at the beauty, sentiment, and
opportuneness of the adventure, as to be scarce able to restrain his
elation, even in the face of a serious swoon.
“Into the coach at once, James,” he says, raising Her Ladyship’s head
himself, “your gentlest endeavors and a guinea apiece to you,” nodding
to the other, as between them they carry the limp form to the coach, “if
you bring me to Kennaston Castle before curfew.”
“Never fear, Sir Robin; if the young gentleman only holds out for a
single hour, I swear, Sir, in the teeth of all the highwaymen in the
kingdom, we’ll have you there.”
“Tut, tut,” says Sir Robin, smiling, no longer restraining an expression
of his happiness and triumph, as he makes ready the rugs and cushions
within to receive the burden James, for the moment, bears alone.
“’Tis no young gentleman, you rogues, ’tis My Lady Peggy Burgoyne, my
bride that is to be. Wait a moment, Thomas, while I spread this shawl;
and James, look you sharp behind us, for there’s a gentleman in pursuit
of this Lady would kill me on sight if he can.”
[Illustration]
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[Illustration]