are a dear little thing, Prue, and though I thought yesterday you did
not care, I know better now. I’m so sorry for you, dear. Your poor head
is so hot and your hands are so cold. You’ll be sick to-morrow, and
after all, it isn’t your fault."
Prudence threw her arms round her and buried her face on her shoulder in
a fresh burst of tears.
"Oh! Peggie, I am a very wicked woman, I fear," she sobbed. "Can
anything be worse than to make a solemn vow before God to love and honor
a man I do not mean ever to see again—to swear to keep him in sickness
and poverty, when all I wish for is that he may die a violent death to
save me from my just debts? Oh! no, no. I do not wish it, Peggie. The
man loves me! If ever I saw love in a man’s eyes, it was when Robin
held me in his arms and prayed me give him one kiss and then forget him!
Alas, Peggie, I can never forget him! He will haunt me with those eyes
that can look death in the face without blenching, and yet will be
closed for ever in a few hours. Oh! Peggie, Peggie, he must not die for
me."
"He does not die for you, dear Prue. He dies for his crimes. Faith,
I’m sorry for it, though he isn’t my husband. But think what a plight
you would be in if he were to live!" Peggie remonstrated.
Prue looked at her like a child suddenly roused from sleep and finding
its way back gradually from dreamland.
"’Tis true," she gasped. "What would become of me?"
"You are his wife," Peggie went on, "and as long as he lives you can not
marry any one else. As to your debts—if he were not to die, he would
have to pay them or go to prison."
"Oh, Peggie, stop! Every word you say makes me hate myself worse and
worse. I must have been mad to marry a robber—a man who forced a kiss
from me at the point of a pistol, as it were, and yet now he is my
husband I can not, dare not, wish him dead."
"If you wished it ever so much, dear, you could neither help nor hinder
it," Peggie began consolingly.
"I’m not so sure of that," cried Prue, raising herself on her elbow and
speaking excitedly. "Do you know last night when I was in the duchess’
box I had more than half a mind to fall on my knees before her and own
everything and implore her to save Robin’s life—"
"Great Heaven!" gasped Peggie. "What on earth do you suppose she would
have done to you?"
"I do not know, and I am not sure that I care much," sighed Prue,
sinking back on her pillow. "But I’m a wretched coward at heart, and a
lump came up in my throat and stifled the words, and all I could say
when she saw the tears running down my face was some foolishness about
the play being so affecting, when every one round me was laughing and I
didn’t even know what the actors were talking about."
"What did the duchess say?" asked Peggie, eager for all the information
she could obtain while her cousin was in the mood to tell it.
"That I was a little fool. And Lord Ripworth said, ’Not at all, that I
wanted them to see how lovely I looked in tears.’ And they all joked me
until I would rather have been hanged myself than hinted at anything
tragic in my life."
Peggie assured her that it was much better as it was and that nothing
would have come of such a self-betrayal but scandal and disgrace that
would have broken their grandmother’s heart and banished them for ever
from society. Then she kissed and petted her until she fell asleep,
much as a grieved and frightened child might do, with long-drawn sighs
and broken sobs gradually softening into the tranquil respiration of
dreamless repose.
But there was the morrow’s waking to come, and it came to Prue with a
sudden sweep of consciousness and recollection that scorched her brain
and stopped the beating of her heart. The clock on the mantel chimed
the half-hour, and starting up in a panic she saw that the hands pointed
to half-past seven.
And Robin Freemantle was to die at eight o’clock. Even now he was on the
way to Tyburn, shackled to other malefactors in the dreadful cart which
he would never leave alive. Even now the mob was jeering him and his
wretched companions and gloating over the prospect of the "last dying
speeches and confessions" which were expected to play so important a
part in the morning’s entertainment. Four of them were to be hanged that
morning—two coiners, a house-breaker and—_Prue’s Husband_! The
hideousness of the thought struck her again with an agony of shame that
tingled in every nerve and for the moment dried the tears upon her
burning face.
She heard Peggie moving in the next room and sprang out of bed, dashing
cold water over her face and head in feverish haste to wash off the
tears and cool down the turgid blood that throbbed in her temples and
crimsoned her cheeks.
Just then the clock struck eight. A neighboring church-clock took up
the chime, and then another at a little distance. It was Robin’s
death-knell. Prue groped blindly a few steps and then, with a low,
wailing cry, fell on the floor in a deathly swoon.
Peggie ran in and by main force lifted her up and laid her on the bed.
The application of such simple remedies as cold water and hartshorn soon
brought back consciousness, and with it floods of tears and such
heart-broken lamentations that Peggie began to ask herself whether there
could be any magic in the marriage service to make a widow mourn so
bitterly for a husband she had only seen on two occasions, and masked on
one of those! She wisely refrained from investigating the source of
Prue’s emotion however, rightly judging that the more completely she
gave way to it the quicker it would wear itself out.
In fact, after an hour or so the violence of her grief subsided, leaving
her pale and languid and much disposed to pity herself as in some
mysterious way very cruelly used by fate and altogether a most
interesting victim.
In this frame of mind she insisted upon rummaging out a black dress and
arranging her curly locks in as subdued a fashion as their luxuriance
and natural wilfulness would submit to. Then she permitted Peggie to
lead her down-stairs.
Behind the dining-room there was a dingy, sunless little library looking
out upon a few feet of neglected back-yard and the blank wall of a
neighboring mansion. To this penitential apartment Prue retired,
delegating to Peggie the task of receiving her callers and making what
excuses she pleased for her absence.
"Say I am ill; say I am dead; say whatever you think will get rid of
them quickest, Peggie, but don’t let them imagine that I am unhappy, for
that is the deadliest breach of good-manners and would make me an object
of ridicule."
"Well, promise me you will not fret any more," besought Peggie,
caressing her. "Your sweet eyes are all puffed up and you won’t be fit
for the masquerade ball if you cry any more."
Prue promised to control herself, and by way of keeping her word threw
herself on the floor before the door closed upon her cousin, and
flinging her arms out upon the seat of a chair, laid her face upon them
and gave way to quieter and more subdued, but not less bitter weeping.
She had not long been thus when the door opened and some one looked in.
Thinking that she was being sought for and sure that where she lay she
was safely hidden, she kept very still.
"Will you wait in here, sir, until I inquire if her ladyship can see
you?" said James, the butler. "What name shall I say?"
"It would be useless to give my name," replied a deep voice; "or stay,
you can say I bring tidings from Bleak-moor."
As the door closed, Prue rose to her feet with distended eyes and
bristling hair, and faced Robin Freemantle.
He wore a long riding-coat of wine-colored cloth and carried a broad
beaver caught up on one side with a plain silver buckle. A small
quantity of fine linen ruffle protruded from his vest and the sleeves of
his coat, and his left hand rested in a broad black ribbon sling. With
his neat leather gaiters and spurred heels, and the plain sword in its
black scabbard peeping from beneath the full skirt of his coat, he
looked the traveling country-gentleman to the life.
For a minute or more the husband and wife stood gazing upon each other
in silence. Gradually the look of terror faded from Prue’s face and was
replaced by an expression in which fear and anger contended with relief.
"It is really you?" she gasped—"alive—and free?" Then the recollection
of her futile tears and her hours of anguish rushed over her and she
stamped her little foot in unmistakable irritation.
"You are angry with me—because I am alive?" he said, recoiling as though
she had struck him.
"I have no right to be angry," she said coldly. "On the contrary, I
congratulate you."
"_You_ congratulate _me_!" he repeated slowly. "But how about yourself?
I am afraid my—resurrection—has put you in an awkward position."
She made no reply.
"Am I to blame for that—?" he began, but she turned upon him swiftly.
"You mean that it is my own fault that you are my husband?" she
interrupted, her blue eyes flashing like steel. "If you choose to blame
me for that, I have not a word to say in my own defense."
"If I dared, I would bless you for it," he said, in a low voice,
"although you, perhaps, were waiting impatiently for news of my death,
when I interrupted you?"
Remembering how she had been employed, Prue had no answer ready. She
was silent a minute, and then abruptly blurted out, "How did you escape,
and why did you come here? Good Heaven, if they should follow you and
find you here! Oh, how could you betray me? Sure, I am the most
unfortunate woman in the world—!"
"Listen to me; there is nothing for you to be alarmed about," he cried,
hurriedly coming to her and seizing her hand. "I am
free—reprieved—pardoned. No one will follow me here; no one—" He
stopped suddenly, and looked fixedly at her. "What has happened?" he
asked, in a tone of deep concern. "You are so pale—your eyes are red
and swollen—you have been weeping?"
"I thought you were dead!" she said half-resentfully.
"And you wept because you thought I was dead?" he said
incredulously—"You were sorry for _me_?" He stood gazing at her, lost
in an amazement so profound that it seemed like a reproach.
She drew away her hand.
"I should be sorry for any poor soul condemned to die," she said, with
an effort at indifference.
"When last I saw her," he said doubtfully, as if reasoning out a strange
problem against which his reason contended, "she was fresh and smiling,
and prinked out like a princess for her marriage with a highwayman.
To-day she is pale and sad," his eye ran over her somber figure, "and
all in black—for my sake—"
"You run on too fast!" Prue interrupted petulantly. "Can I not wear a
black dress without putting on mourning for your sake? Methinks I’ll
have to wear it for my own! Never, surely, was a woman so caught in her
own trap!" She cast her eyes round, as though for visible means of
escape. Suddenly a thought of horror glanced into her mind.
"Did you come here to claim me?" she gasped, sinking into a chair,
pallid with fear.
"You need not fear me, I have no such design upon you," he said,
regarding her with pitying tenderness. He was sorely wounded, though
more for her sake than his own. "Can you not understand that I would
rather perish by the most cruel tortures than give you one moment’s
pain? Oh! rather than see that look of fear and hatred upon your face,
I would I were now hanging upon the gallows! At least, you would pity
me there, and if not, I should be none the worse off for your scorn. I
am free, it is true, but an exile, and unless I leave these shores
within eight days, an outlaw. In a week, then, should I be still alive,
I shall be dead in law and you will be free from me for ever."
She listened attentively while he was speaking, and her face lost its
tense look of terror. Once or twice she glanced furtively at him,
noting the power and grace of his tall form, his easy, self-confident
bearing and the manly frankness of his strong, swarthy face—more
attractive than mere beauty to a woman so essentially feminine as
Prudence. She was not afraid of him now, but she was extremely angry
with fate, and at the moment he represented fate in its most inexorable
form, so she wanted to be very angry with him. Yet she could not
reproach him, for the harder she struck at him, the more she would wound
her own pride.
"It is all so terrible," she said, sighing wearily. Then the door was
flung open, and Peggie darted in with the _News_ sheet in her hand.
"Prue, Prue," she cried, flinging her arms round her cousin without
observing that she was not alone. "He is not dead—he has been pardoned
and is out of prison. Oh! my poor, dear Prue, to think you were all
night breaking your heart for nothing—"
"Hush, hush, Peggie!" Prue was scarlet to the roots of her hair, and
with both her hands over Peggie’s mouth, tried to stifle her voice.
"Mercy!" shrieked Peggie, suddenly discovering Robin. "How did you get
here? What did you come for?"
"For no evil purpose, my good Mistress Peggie," he replied
good-humoredly. "I came as any other visitor and requested a few words
in private with Lady Prudence Brooke. By good fortune, I found her here
alone, and will now proceed to disclose the object of my visit, which is
simply to ask her to take charge of this small packet for me, until I
send a messenger for it."
The packet was a compact one, about the size of an ordinary letter, and
scarcely thicker, carefully stitched in a piece of white silk, and
secured by a seal without any device.
Robin held it out to Prue, but she made no movement to take it.
"Oh! don’t be afraid that I would ask you to do anything dangerous," he
went on earnestly. "If it concerned myself, I would not dare to trouble
you, but this is a sacred trust, which I hold far above my life, and if
I were rearrested, which is quite possible, I might not be able to rid
myself of it in time to prevent a great disaster. It was for this
reason that I took the unwarrantable liberty of calling upon the
Viscountess Brooke. This packet concerns the life and fortune of many
friends of hers, but no one would think of looking for it in the keeping
of the Duchess of Marlborough’s favorite."
"Friends of mine?" she exclaimed incredulously. "Then who are you?"
"A poor soldier of fortune," he replied, bowing low as though
introducing himself, "who has for a moment crossed your path, and in a
few days will return to his natural obscurity and trouble you no more.
All he asks is forgiveness for having so signally failed in keeping his
part of the marriage contract."
"It is not that," she interrupted, thoroughly abashed, though not less
angry than before. "_I_ should, perhaps, be the one to ask pardon for
forcing a marriage upon you which must be very irksome now; for, sure,
you must be even more embarrassed to find yourself saddled with a wife
than I with a husband. Yet, believe me, I am not so bad as I seem.
Peggie knows I did not wish you harm, but oh! I wish I had never seen
you. Why did you attack us on Bleakmoor, and why, oh! why did you let
yourself be caught and put in prison—by Sir Geoffrey, of all men! Even
the devil could not have put such an idea in my head, about a highwayman
I had never seen or heard of—"
Poor Robin turned so pale while Prue poured out these lamentations, that
Peggie took compassion on him. "Out upon you, Cousin, for a railing
shrew! If you must needs blame somebody, let it be me, for if I had not
persuaded you to run away from Yorkshire, Captain Freemantle would not
have kissed—I mean waylaid you—and if I had refused to carry your
message to Newgate, he would have been spared a scolding wife, and God
he knows, his state would have been the more gracious—if I had not
meddled in things I had better have left alone."
"Well, Peggie, I forgive you; and you too, Sir Highwayman. The only
person I can not pardon is Prudence Brooke, who never looks the length
of her nose before she jumps over a precipice," said Prue. "Give me
your packet," she held out her hand, without raising her eyes, "and tell
me how I can serve you; but do not trust me too far; you can see for
yourself what an empty-headed little fool I am."
"If you knew how you hurt me by blaming yourself, you would refrain,"
said Robin, in a low voice. "Believe me, death would be welcome, if it
would make you as kind to me again as you were when I was condemned to
die. But a higher law than man’s law forbids us to take our own life or
even throw it away recklessly; yet do not despair, the outlaw walks
blindfold through a worldful of executioners."
"You wrong me in speaking as though—as though I were one of them," she
replied, with a touch of disdain. "What do you wish me to do with your
packet?"
"To keep it safely until my messenger calls for it, and to be alone when
you give it to him. He will carry no credentials," Robin added, "and
will merely inquire if you have anything for The Captain. You can
surrender your charge to him without fear. Accept my profoundest thanks
for this favor, and my humblest apologies for having intruded so long.
Farewell, ladies."
Once more he bowed ceremoniously and was gone.
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE PRICE OF A BIRTHRIGHT*
Robin set out at a rapid pace in the direction of the city, but as he
was passing through a crowded street, a crippled beggar with a patch
over one eye stopped him, and with a piteous whine, implored his
charity.
Tossing him a coin, Robin went on his way, but the beggar, quite agile
for so dilapidated a creature, kept close behind him, pouring out a
stream of petitions and lamentations.
"What’s sixpence to a noble lord like your honor? Make it a shilling,
brave Captain, to help me out of the country. There’s a warrant out for
me, and divil take me if I know what’s the charge, but its something
political—hanging and quartering at the very least. Thank your honor
kindly, and may your enemies always get the worst of it. Ah! but
Lunnon’s a bad town, and Linc’n’s Inn’s the very place to ambush a man
and take him after the lawyers have got everything out of him. Divil
take me if ever I’d give a thing to a lawyer that I might want myself;
they’d take your life for six-and-eightpence, and make a bargain with
Ould Scratch for your soul—-"
"That will do, my good fellow," said Robin, flashing a quick glance at
him. "You need not follow me any farther, you are only wasting what is
doubtless valuable time."
The beggar mumbled an excuse, and turned to beg from the nearest
passer-by. And Robin pursued his way in a very thoughtful mood.
"Another warrant out," he murmured. "I ought to have thought of that
when they appointed this morning to finish the business instead of
settling it all yesterday. Steve was right. These hounds never meant
to give me a chance."
By this time he was in the Strand, and turning up a paved court behind
St. Martin’s Church, knocked at a door, on which the name of Matthew
Double, Attorney-at-Law, appeared on a brass plate.
The door was quickly opened and two men came out, who had been waiting
for him. One of these, though scarcely older than Robin, had the
strained look of hard work and high living that distinguished the
professional man of that day. This was Mr. Matthew Double, and the
other, in shabby black, carrying a mighty blue-bag, could never have
been intended by nature for anything but a lawyer’s clerk.
"Aha! here’s our man, punctual to the minute," cried Double. "Few men
would be so prompt to throw away a great inheritance, Captain."
"My word is passed," said Robin. "Did you doubt that I would keep it?"
"Not I; have I not just given you abundant proof of confidence? Still,
I hate to see the chances of such a splendid law-suit thrown away;
literally flung to the dogs. Dogs, too, who, if I am not mistaken, will
turn and rend you when they have drawn your teeth and cut your claws."
"_When_ they have," replied Robin. "By the way, can you lend me a
cloak; a long and ample one?"
"This is somewhat the worse for wear," said Double, indicating one that
hung in the hall, "but if you want it for a disguise it is rather
conspicuous."
"All the better for both reasons," replied Robin, throwing over his
shoulders a military-looking cloak of dark green cloth, a good deal
frayed, and lined with stained and faded red. With it, he assumed a
swaggering step, and with his beaver cocked at a defiant angle, made a
striking contrast to the smugly clad lawyer and his weazened satellite.
"I’m ready now," he cried, and the trio started, keeping to the least
frequented side of a street parallel with the Strand.
"My good Captain," Mr. Double remonstrated, after going a very short
distance, "moderate your stride, I pray, to that of a man a foot shorter
than yourself; or, better still, let me call a coach."
"I’d rather walk, if it is all the same to you," Robin replied. "A man
who has taken all his exercise for two or three weeks in the courtyard
of Newgate, feels the need of stretching his legs when he gets outside."
"True, but _I_ haven’t been in Newgate for three weeks, and am, besides,
of too portly a figure to enjoy violent exercise. Samuel, stop the
first empty coach we meet. Truly, Captain, thou’rt a queer fellow;
there are not many of your profession I’d venture to let out of my sight
for twelve hours when I was under bonds to surrender him at a certain
time, and he had so many good reasons for leaving me in the lurch."
Robin laughed. "Why, it would ill suit me to leave London with my
affairs but half-settled," he said; "after to-day your responsibility
will be at an end, and whether I decide to stay here and challenge the
hangman, or accept my fate and leave the country, depends on matters you
wot not of, and will concern no one but myself."
"’Tis a thousand pities," observed Double regretfully, "that you did not
unravel the mystery of your birth until there was a price upon your
head. There’s enough in your claim to have made a pretty case. A ve-ry
pret-ty case. Even now—"
"Even now," interrupted Robin, "I have bought my life at the price of my
birthright, and I’ll pay the price if I get what I bargained for. But
not unless. Oh! I’m no sheep to give my wool first, and then go
quietly to the shambles."
"They will scarcely attempt to do anything while you are in England—but
if you are going to—say America—I would advise you to give your address
in—let us say Paris."
A peculiar smile curved Robin’s mouth, but not mirthfully.
"Truly, I had thought of the colonies," he said reflectively.
"Perchance, the government will give me a grant of land in some swamp or
wilderness, where I can work off my superfluous energies fighting the
Indians or the Spaniards."
"There is a coach, Master Double," interposed the meek voice of the
clerk; "would you wish me to hire it?"
"What, within a stone’s throw of Lincoln’s Inn? Your conversation has
beguiled me, Captain, but it has also made me thirsty. We have a few
minutes to spare, and I would gladly crack a bottle to the successful
ending of our business."
They turned into a quiet coffee-house, and Robin ordered a bottle of
Burgundy. While it was being fetched from the cellar, he obtained a
sheet of paper from Samuel’s blue-bag and wrote a brief letter, in which
he inclosed two small documents, sealed the packet with great care, and
carefully addressed it
"To Mistress Larkyn,
"In care of Mine Hostess of
"The Fox and Grapes."
Mine Hostess, a plump but not uncomely dame, with a merry eye, sat in
her cosy bar, surrounded by quaint flagons and other emblems of her
hospitable calling. She returned a cheerful answer to Robin’s greeting,
and inquired his pleasure.
"You have a kindly face, and I’ll be sworn a heart to match, fair
Goddess of the Grape," said Robin. "Will you help two hapless lovers,
separated by cruel fate?"
"That depends on what I am to help them to," she retorted. "Mine’s a
respectable house, and I’d rather have dealings with lawyers than
lovers."
"I want but a trifling service from you, though ’tis a vast favor to
me," said Robin. "Will you take charge of this letter, and by and by
give it to the serving-man of Mistress Larkyn, whose name is writ upon
it?"
"Oh! if that’s all," she said, extending a hand that was plump and
shapely, if not over-clean. Robin seized the hand and touched it
gallantly with his lips, before surrendering the letter to its clasp.
After that, although she called him an "impudent varlet," and made as
though to box his ears, he might have asked a much greater favor without
danger of rebuff.