Sharnbrook had called at Staplewick for an authoritative version of
certain blood-curdling rumours which had reached him, and he stayed to
luncheon.
"Wish I'd known you were having such a thrilling time," he said
regretfully. "I'd have come up and helped. Well, I say, with this new
twist of the Quorn title our fair friends at the Moat will get a nasty
shake, eh? I'm ever so grateful for the way you fellows have relieved
the pressure of the fair dodgers; they've eased off wonderfully of
late, and I've got my wind again."
"Glad to hear it," observed Peckover. "Always willing to oblige a
sportsman."
"Ah," said Sharnbrook in a gratified tone, "if I'd only known you were
having fits with that little Spanish bantam, I'd have brought along a
rare good bull-dog that would have reduced him to fragments and pulp
inside three minutes. A nailing beast, knows his business from A to Z
and quite a picture when he's----"
"The little devil of a duke would have put a bullet through him," said
Gage, "and that would have been a pity."
"Yes," Sharnbrook agreed, "that wouldn't have suited me. I've only had
the beggar a month, and have just got fond of him."
"Even a Spanish bluffer has his uses," observed Gage. "He has knocked
the stuffing out of Quorn's bush-ranger."
"Yes," said Quorn, "that brute has no more terrors for me; I suppose,
though, I shall have him and Lalage hanging about the place till I can
afford to send them back."
"Better keep the fire-irons out of the way," remarked Peckover.
"I'll send the precious pair back home for you, if you don't get the
Buffkin money," said Gage magnanimously. "After all, I owe you
something. I can't say I've had much fun out of your title, and hope
you'll do better with it. But it has been an experience, and I
certainly shan't hanker after the peerage again."
Quorn thanked him. "Hope you'll stay on here as long as you fancy," he
said.
Gage shook his head. "No thanks. I'm off to-morrow. Too much Hemyock
about for me. But I'll run down later and see what you're making of
it."
"What's going to become of you?" he asked Peckover. "Got anything more
to sell that doesn't belong to you?"
"You can't blame me," Peckover protested. "I kept to my part of the
bargain as long as you had any use for it. And I couldn't help it. If
you hadn't made a bid for the title I should have had to take it on
myself."
"Right you are," responded Gage good-humouredly. "Well, you had better
come with me and show me round. You can draw L300 a year as my
secretary."
"I'm your man," said Peckover with alacrity. "What I don't show you
won't be worth seeing."
Lady Ormstork with Mr. and Miss Buffkin was announced.
The dowager was full of gush. "Dear Lord Quorn! What an amusing
incognito! Quite like the lord of Burleigh. One can quite understand
your wishing to put people's real affection to the test."
"We won't inquire how the article stood it," Quorn replied bluntly.
"Quite romantic, as dear Ulrica was saying," the lady proceeded, quite
unabashed. "May we, before going out, look round the picture gallery?
Mr. Buffkin would so like to see the interesting family portraits and
wonderful old armour."
If Mr. Buffkin's expression was meant to be corroborative it was a
distinct failure. Whatever sentiment might have been read in his
commercial face, a yearning for the satisfying of an artistic curiosity
was not there.
No objection to the proposal being made, the party proceeded to what
Peckover called the ancestral showroom.
"Won't you look after dear Ulrica and show her round?" Lady Ormstork
said pointedly to Quorn when the somewhat dreary gallery was reached.
Quorn, nothing loath, attached himself forthwith to Miss Buffkin, who
had somehow gravitated to the now negligible Peckover. "Now, Mr.
Peckover," he said bluffly, "you ought to know all about these fifth of
November Johnnies. Give us a bit of the showman. Take us round the
effigies, and don't be too long about it."
On account, perhaps, of Miss Buffkin's obvious preference, Peckover was
in higher spirits than his lot seemed to warrant.
"All right," he responded, pulling a ramrod from an ancient gun for use
as a showman's wand. "Here goes! Lord Quorn, ladies and gentlemen:
with a view to combining instruction with amusement, I propose to give
you some points concerning these noble effigies with which the spacious
apartment is lined. True, it is only the outer crusts of these
distinguished warriors and sportsmen that I am able to bring to your
notice. The kernels are all gone, and the shells are--hem!--left
tenantless. But, as in these days the tailor makes the man, so we may
say that in olden times the blacksmith made him, from which we may
conclude that we have the best part," he tapped a suit of armour with
his wand, "of the noble house of Quorn remaining with us to this day."
"Hear! hear!" cried Sharnbrook, with more appreciation than tact,
while Miss Buffkin laughed sympathetically.
"The clockwork has long since run down," continued Peckover finding the
vocabulary of his former vocation coming in usefully; "the striking
gear is out of order, on account of the dust getting into it. The
hands can point no longer, and the faces have lost their enamel. But
we have still the cases--some plain, like this,"--he tapped a suit of
plate armour--"some engine turned, like that," pointing to an inlaid
suit, "some with open faces, like this yawner," he rattled his wand in
the cavity of a vizorless helmet, "some hunters, like this prancer,"
indicating an equestrian portrait. "To begin at the beginning." He
held up a dilapidated helmet in one hand and in the other a fragment of
armour. "Sir Guy de Quorn, founder of the family."
There was a laugh from everybody, although Lady Ormstork's was rather
belated, that astute dowager's sense of humour being outweighed by her
concern at seeing that Ulrica was paying more attention to the flippant
little showman than to the more solid worth of Lord Quorn.
"Not much of him remaining," Peckover went on. "Ladies and gentlemen
of vivid powers of imagination may reconstruct in their minds from
these scanty materials the noble mien, the imposing figure, of this
doughty warrior. Pass on to Sir Nicholas de Quorn," he pointed to the
suit of armour that stood next, "in a high state of preservation. A
mighty man of valour, who had the advantage of living in times when he
could knock a man out for sneezing in his presence without being liable
to forty shillings or a month. Sir Nicholas spent a useful life in
trying his muscle and weight on other people, and was getting his name
up nicely, when unfortunately setting out to attack the castle of an
absent neighbour in a thunderstorm, his lance acted as a lightning
conductor, and he was prematurely cremated. Notice the aperture
through which the electric fluid tunnelled its way to his knightly
vitals, and the look of blank astonishment with a dash of 'uffiness on
the champion's visage."
The said visage being indeed a blank, this fancy seemed to tickle even
the unimaginative Mr. Buffkin. Peckover now directed attention to a
weird-looking portrait. "Sir Penning de Quorn, surnamed the Feckless.
He never did anything distinguished, and only escaped being made
Commander-in-Chief through one of the Royal Family fancying himself in
a cocked hat." He passed to another canvas. "Sir Brian de
Quorn--sometimes called the Buffer, as nothing made any impression on
him. He married four wives, three of whom survived him."
Sharnbrook guffawed, and Lady Ormstork looked scandalized.
"Sir Walter the Willing," proceeded Peckover, working up the showman
business, as he pointed to the next portrait, "a distinguished
advertising politician. He pushed his way to the front and became a
Cabinet Minister by his imitations of popular jesters, and by dyeing
his raven locks crimson with a secret wash which he purchased from a
bald Crusader who had no further use for it. When at length the supply
failed and the substitutes he tried to manufacture turned his hair
green, and by their offensive odour left him alone on the Treasury
Bench he was soon sent to the Upper House, becoming first Baron Quorn."
Mr. Buffkin, for an out-of-place, commercial Philistine seemed, to
Peckover's gratification, to be taking in the lecture with genuine
amusement.
Thus stimulated, the showman proceeded, "Harboro' de Quorn," he tapped
a sporting portrait, "second Baron Quorn, and inventor of the Quorn
Hunt. He induced the noble Normans to abandon the shooting of foxes
which they consented to, owing to gunpowder being in its infancy, guns
taking a quarter of an hour to load and fire, and the wily animal being
hard to hit with a bow and arrow. He was the first M.F.H., and having
an impediment in his speech he originated the expression, Yoicks!
which, being interpreted, was his bovrilized way of cursing people who
rode over the hounds."
"Good man," ejaculated Sharnbrook.
Peckover, encouraged by Ulrica's animated interest, went on with his
lecture in spite of Lady Ormstork's obvious impatience. His next
object was a big suit of armour on which he irreverently rattled his
wand. "We now come to the third Baron, Marmaduke, surnamed the Masher.
His fatal gift of beauty was the cause of some anxiety--to the married
nobility, clergy and gentry of his acquaintance. He was, as you will
observe, very particular about the cut of his armour and the shape of
his helmet, which was constructed with an extra-size pigeon-hole, in
order that the full extent of his handsome physiognomy might be
utilized to dazzle the doting damsels. His end, ladies and gentlemen,
was, I regret to say, a somewhat melancholy and unusual one. While
drinking a stirrup-cup, and trying at the same time to wink over the
brim of the goblet at the young lady behind the bar, a portion of the
pick-me-up went down the wrong way; to correct which mistake his
faithful squire seized a spade and smote him therewith on the back.
The clang of the blow on his armour startled his horse, which took to
bucking, and at the first attempt laid the coughing nobleman in the
ditch. He never wunk again. Notice the rectangular impression of the
shovel between the shoulders, also the extra-sized sliding kissing-trap
of the helmet so contrived for the purpose of simplifying the process
of osculation to which he was addicted."
A marked diversion was here created by the entrance at the farther end
of the gallery of Bisgood ushering in the entire Hemyock family. Their
arrival was not greeted with that cordiality which is usually desirable
and customary; it was, indeed, anything but welcome to any except two
of the party. As Quorn, followed by the rest, went forward to receive
the visitors, Peckover and Miss Buffkin lingered behind together.
"Like to see the view from the Tower?" he suggested with a grin.
Ulrica laughed and they slipped unnoticed through a covered door. From
an octagonal chamber a winding stairway led up to the tower. "Come
along," said Peckover elatedly.
Ulrica with a mischievous laugh followed, and they soon emerged at the
top where floated a tattered flag from a tall staff.
"How lovely," Miss Buffkin exclaimed.
"Never mind the view," said Peckover desperately. "How do you like the
new Lord Quorn?"
Ulrica pouted. "I don't see myself Lady Quorn," she answered with a
certain amount of decision.
"No," Peckover agreed with conviction. "He's not a bad sort, but he
wouldn't be my fancy if I were a pretty girl."
"He's too glumpy for me," Ulrica declared. "And what's more I'm not
going to have him."
"What'll the guv'nor say?" Peckover asked dubiously.
Miss Buffkin laughed. "Oh, father won't mind. You see," she went on
confidentially, "this coronet racket isn't his idea at all. Not it."
"Yours?"
"Not likely. It is old Ormstork's. We ran across her at the Grand
Oceanic at Harrogate. She hung on to us like a stoat on a rabbit. We
couldn't make her game out, till one day she asked father what odds he
would lay her that I didn't marry a peer. And she has been dragging me
about the country ever since, till it has fairly come to pall."
"I should think so," observed Peckover sympathetically.
"I don't know," she continued, "how many noble heads I've been thrown
at. But somehow I've always managed to rebound, and sometimes hit the
old lady in the eye. You see, I like a live man, not a stuffed peer,
with about as much soul as a gramaphone."
"I wish I was a peer," he said ruefully. "I'm alive all right."
"So you are," she agreed, gazing round the depressing park.
"Yes," he said with a wistful touch, "you said you liked me once, when
you thought I was something else."
"What was that?" she inquired naively.
"A rich chap; a millionaire."
"Well, aren't you?" she demanded.
"Not exactly," he answered rather lugubriously. "That dream's over.
We've been playing a queer game, but it has come to an end sooner than
I expected. I'm a poor devil again now, and there's all about it."
For a moment Ulrica's violet eyes rested on him sympathetically. Then
they looked away and seemed to be interested in the distant figure of
Mr. Treacher who was slouching across the landscape.
"If people are poor," she said presently in a low voice from which all
feeling was rigidly excluded, "it doesn't make any difference with me,
when I like them."
Peckover jumped up. He could do no less. "Ulrica," he said and his
voice trembled, "you like me? Yes, you said you did once. But I can't
hold you to that for I was a regular fraud when I got you to say it."
Miss Buffkin gave a little sigh, and with a lingering glance at the
uninteresting Mr. Treacher, turned towards the stairway. "All right,"
she said with an affectation of indifference. "I think I hear some one
climbing after us."
The steps were steep and awkward. He had to take her hand, and at the
touch his resolution (more honourable than many a better-bred man would
have formed) gave way. "Ulrica," he said with a diffident tremor, "you
couldn't care for a little nobody like me?"
She was gathering up her skirts for the descent. "I always rather
liked you," she confessed.
"You wouldn't marry me?"
"What would Lady Ormstork say?" she objected archly.
"Ulrica, you are not fooling me?"
"Not much," she answered. "By the way, my real name is Barbara. Only
the old lady thought Ulrica more classy, and so it had to be Ulrica."
In an instant he had sprung to the top step and his arms were round
her. "Barbara, my darling."
"Hark!" she protested struggling.
From below came Lady Ormstork's insistent call.
"Barbara, quick! Is it to be?"
"Poor old Ormstork."
"Bother her. It's your father."
"I think he likes you. You're rather his sort, and Q. isn't," she said
over her shoulder as she went down the winding stairs.
At the bottom stood Lady Ormstork looking properly scandalized. Apart
from her charge's escapade, her meeting with Lady Agatha had not been
conducive to serenity.
"My dearest Ulrica," she said sourly, "how absurd of you to hide
yourself away up in that horrid tower. Lord Quorn is hunting for you
everywhere."
"I'm so glad he hasn't found me yet," was the not very soothing reply.
"Are you mad, girl?" cried the dowager.
"Not yet. If I marry Quorn you may inquire again."
Lady Ormstork's indignation was so great that she could only glare,
first at Ulrica, then at Peckover. "Is this," she demanded in her most
withering tones, "the sort of person you prefer to Lord Quorn?"
"All things considered, it is," answered Ulrica boldly.
"You hear that?" screamed the irate dowager to Mr. Buffkin, who had
just appeared in his flight from the embarrassing position of a target
for the shafts of the Hemyock family. "Your daughter actually refuses
the ennobling alliance which I have been at such pains to arrange for
her."
"I'm not exactly surprised to hear it," was the unsympathetic reply.
"Perhaps you will be to learn that your daughter has the unheard-of
wrongheadedness to prefer a person of this most equivocal description,"
Lady Ormstork indicated Peckover with a contemptuous wave of her
glasses, "to Lord Quorn."
"Ah," said Mr. Buffkin with provoking foolishness. "I dare say she
prefers some one lively, and I don't blame her."
"But--but," urged Lady Ormstork, almost speechless with discomfiture,
"do you call this person a good match?"
"I should say he matches her better than the lord," was the hopeless
reply.
"That's right, father," observed Miss Buffkin.
Lady Ormstork turned and without another word went into the gallery,
the others following at a safe distance.
The enlightenment of the Hemyock family as to the identity of the real
Lord Quorn had been, for obvious reasons, delayed by the parties most
interested in keeping them in the dark. But now that the new-found
peer was not to fall to Lady Ormstork's bag, that spiteful dowager
determined to let the cat out of it.
"May I order my carriage, Lord Quorn?" she said in her most distinct
and penetrating tones. "It is getting late."
As Quorn rose in his lumbering fashion and rang the bell, the Hemyock
girls who had been gaily chattering to Gage became abruptly silent, and
Lady Agatha looked stonily nonplussed.
"Lord Quorn?" she said, with a brave attempt at a successful smile.
"Surely this is not Lord Quorn?"
"I'm nobody else," Quorn assured her bluffly.
"How very singular," said Lady Ormstork icily, "that you should not
have known it."
"Not at all," rejoined Lady Agatha promptly. "We have for weeks past
understood this gentleman was Lord Quorn."
"I didn't like to contradict you," said Gage on being indicated.
Lady Agatha, for once too dumfounded for speech, could only give a
significant look of appeal to her daughters. And at the look John
Arbuthnot Sharnbrook, who had taken the precaution to get near the
door, opened it quietly and slipped out.
Meanwhile the brown eyes of Miss Ethel and the black orbs of Miss
Dagmar were fastened searchingly on Lord Quorn, and they transmitted to
their owners the impression that he was not an attractive personage.
In truth there was yet a good deal of the Jenkins about him. His
clothes looked as though he had been in the habit of going to bed in
them, and his hair cried out for the barber. For the moment, at any
rate, he was not to be jumped at, and with that conviction the original
impulse to spring was stilled. Lady Agatha rose, with a lofty ignoring
of Lady Ormstork's exultant smile.
"If," she said to Gage, "you are not Lord Quorn, as you have all along
thought proper to pretend to be, may one ask who you are?"
"I am Peter Gage," he answered with a touch of amusement.
The eyes of Lady Agatha and her daughters met, and all that could be
read in them was an indignant perplexity.
"It is all very extraordinary." Colonel Hemyock's thin voice sounded
through the room, but his family heeded it not. Their minds were busy
with the enigma of the position which was too complicated, not to say
suspicious, to be comprehended at once. Only one thing in all the
business seemed safe, and their minds jumped together to it. They
recoiled, as by a single impulse, from the unattractive personality of
Lord Quorn, from the doubtful individualities of Gage and Peckover, and
their eyes by common consent sought the spot where their sheet-anchor
had lately rested.
"Sharnbrook!"
"Where is he?"
They ran a dead heat to the door, charged through it, and so out into
the garden. But John Arbuthnot Sharnbrook's start served him well, and
he was at that moment sprinting homewards down the drive with a canny
smile on his simple face.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
THE MASTER SPIRIT
_Liverpool Post_ says:--"The study of the prostrate man giving the best
of his brains to the assistance of Herriard is beyond all praise. It
is one more variant of the 'double' theory, but it is one of the best
achievements of its kind."
_The Tribune_ says:--"It must be admitted that Sir Wm. Magnay knows
London life better than many novelists, that his men talk like
gentlemen, and that his pictures of society are clever and truthful."
_The Manchester City News_ says:--"This well written and attractive
story outlines a true picture of the vanities and insincerities of
fashionable society in London."
_The Road_ says:--"Few plots in even the best up-to-date novels of
to-day are as strongly drawn as this one, which has all the freshness
of absolute novelty to recommend it."
_The Court Journal_ says:--"The intensely interesting situation is
developed with much ingenuity and power. It is a capital story, told
with far more literary skill than is usual. A really fascinating
story."
FAUCONBERG
_The Daily Telegraph_ says:--"Good and well written, readable from
opening chapter to finish."
_The Illustrated Mail_ says:--"The story teems with incident, moves
briskly and as a narrative is very readable."
_The Field_ says:--"The ultimate fate of Fauconberg is always in doubt
from the beginning to the unexpected ending. The book has grip and
should be a success."
_The Aberdeen Journal_ says:--"From start to finish the story is full
of striking situations and Fauconberg will unfailingly appeal to all
who love a vigorously told narrative."
THE RED CHANCELLOR
_Lloyd's News_ says:--"One of the most readable novels of the adventure
type that we have taken up. A story full of action with its characters
strongly drawn. Adventures and hair-breadth escapes abound, the style
is refreshingly crisp, and the book altogether is one that can be most
heartily recommended."
_The King_ says:--"A romance of stirring adventure. Excitingly
narrated, and the book in every way ought to prove one of the best
reading romances of the season."
_The Swansea Gazette_ says:--"A very thrilling and interesting book,
and commands in every page the reader's attention."
_The Irish Times_ says:--"A most thrilling story, well written and
cleverly put together, the romance is a fascinating one."
_Public Opinion_ says:--"It positively bristles with adventure. A
capital book, wildly exciting."
_The Daily Telegraph_ says:--"A story which is distinctly good."
THE MYSTERY OF THE UNICORN
An absorbing romance of modern life, depending for its interest quite
as much on its vivid pictures of society as on its more sensational
incidents. Mr. E. F. Benson and Mr. Robert Hichens have more than once
achieved the same effect in the weaving of stories of tense dramatic
interest, and the present book is a strong and clever specimen of its
class. Without sacrificing the probabilities the author realizes with
great skill the element of strangeness which often carries the
circumstances of modern life even to the verge of fantasy. It is an
engrossing story, cleverly set forth.
A PRINCE OF LOVERS
_The World_ says:--"This story is delightful; full of life and
movement, genuine human nature, and the stir of love and grief, good
fortune and evil with so much reality in the persons on the stage that
they enlist sympathy or excite animosity as fully as the author needs
to desire. The stars which Sir William Magnay has selected and set
shining for us in an atmosphere well suited for their radiance are very
bright and particular indeed."
_The Dundee Courier_ says:--"We commend this book to any one on the
look out for a thrilling, fascinating, and skilfully narrated tale.
Each chapter abounds in exciting situations and daring deeds, one's
anxiety to know what comes next increasing as the story unfolds."
_The Portsmouth Times_ says:--"A brilliant romance crowded with
stirring incident and is never for a moment dull."
_The Morning Leader_ says:--"The story is spirited and exciting and may
be read with pleasure by all who enjoy a stirring romance."
_The Scotsman_ says:--"The story is full of exciting adventures
skilfully narrated. Swords are whirling in every page and so thrilling
are the incidents that each chapter breeds anxiety to know the events
of the next."
_The Athenaeum_ says:--"Sir Wm. Magnay wafts us away to the realms of
pure romance, where the hard facts of a prosaic century are forgotten
in the Hercynian Forest of two hundred years ago. The princess is
loveliest of the lovely, the villains craftiest of the crafty; gallant
deeds are done and gallant words are spoken, and the whole flows
smoothly on to a happy conclusion, leaving the reader under a debt of
gratitude for a pleasing entertainment."
_The Birmingham Post_ says:--"The reader's enjoyment will be enhanced
by delightful touches of humour which the author has interspersed among
the many exciting and dramatic scenes of a stirring chronicle."
_The Liverpool Post_ says:--"A book that maintains interest at a high
pitch from start to finish, and should command immediate success."
THE MAN OF THE HOUR
_The Aberdeen Free Press_ says:--"Abounds in striking situations and is
dominated throughout by strong dramatic power."
_The Court Journal_ says:--"It is certainly one of the books of the
hour, very interesting and distinctly clever."
_The Dundee Courier_ says:--"The story is admirably constructed and
highly dramatic."
_Vanity Fair_ says:--"A very remarkably good story, told with much
force and lightened by some very humorous observations of life and
people."
COUNT ZARKA
_The Bristol Mercury_ says:--"A magnificent tribute to the author's
power of imagination. It is well written; the author keeping his
characters in hand with marvellous skill, and works out an intricate
plot to a dramatic conclusion."
_The Yorkshire Herald_ says:--"Full of excitement. The plot hangs upon
the disappearance of a Prince who has been kidnapped by Count Zarka,
his foe, who condemns him to cruel torture, and imprisons him in a
cunningly devised room in his castle. The story of the discovery of
the Prince and of the final defeat of Zarka is a stirring one, and
there is a strong love interest throughout the romance, which is
heightened in the scene where the heroine is induced to fight a duel
with swords by Zarka's jealous mistress."
_The World says_:--"Sir William Magnay's novel _Count Zarka_ is a
clever and entertaining story; it affords us glimpses of forest scenery
which we like, and one remarkable departure from beaten tracks, a
woman's duel in earnest."
_The Dundee Courier_ says:--"The story is brightly and thrillingly
told, and holds one through all its three hundred odd pages."