The man who, with his burly form filling up the window, stood looking in with grim amusement at Peckover's performance, was a great round-faced, bullet-headed fellow of six feet two, whose massive proportions, coupled with his juvenile countenance and somewhat vacuous expression, gave him the appearance of a fat schoolboy seen through a magnifying-glass. He was dressed in a Norfolk suit of leather, which by its amplitude of cut made the wearer look even a bigger man than Nature had intended him to be.
For some seconds the two stood staring at each other in a sort of stupefied silence. Then Peckover, somewhat nervously, remarked, "Hullo!"
"Keeping warm?" the substantial apparition enquired, drawing back the corners of his wide mouth in a sarcastic grin.
"Foot asleep," was the ready explanation, given with a certain apprehensive quaver.
"I see." The stranger accepted the statement for what it was worth. "This is Staplewick Towers?" The question was put in a tone of settled conviction that only an answer in the affirmative would be deemed worthy of credence.
"Yes. Front door round to the left," said Peckover perking up.
"Thanks," returned the intruder significantly. "I'll try that way when I leave." He took a step in to the room and stared round him curiously.
"Awkward member!" was Peckover's muttered comment, duly impressed by the other's size, which made the furniture look small. "You wish to see Colonel Hemyock?"
"Not particularly," returned the stranger gruffly, "I want Lord Quorn."
"Lord Quorn!" Peckover caught up his face in the act of falling. "Pressing business?" he inquired politely.
"Very."
"Any message?"
"No." The man's voice was unnecessarily, objectionably loud, Peckover thought. "You would not care to take what I've come all the way from Australia to give him," he added with unpleasant significance, as he twirled a thick crop, just missing a statuette by half an inch.
So the complication which Peckover had feared but of which his good fortune and the zest of his new life had made him forgetful, had arrived. In a moment the particularly awkward truth flashed upon him, that this was the dreaded bully from Australia, the brother of the would-be Lady Quorn.
The idea put his thoughts in such a whirl that he was not ready with any reply. His hesitation seemed to have the effect of exasperating the quick-tempered visitor.
"Where is this nobleman?" he roared, with sneering emphasis on the substantive.
Peckover, with the income of a Cabinet Minister at stake, was rapidly running over expedients for meeting the monstrous emergency. To put him off for the moment and send for the police seemed the most feasible way.
"Lord Quorn?" he replied. "Oh, he's about."
"He won't be about much after I have done with him," was the grim retort. Suddenly stooping forward and looking viciously round the room, the unpleasant visitor carelessly threw his crop away over his shoulder and caught up the poker. "Look here!" he bellowed. "His lordship's right leg." With the word he made a furious effort and snapped the poker in halves. "See?" he panted, throwing the pieces down so near Peckover's feet that the impressed observer sprang eighteen inches into the air. "How will his lordship like that?" he asked loudly.
It occurred to Peckover that, considering the poor fellow's situation, the tampering with his noble limbs would not be likely to affect him much, and he said so.
The strong man stared at him in incredulous exasperation that the performance had missed its intended effect. "What? He's not a big chap, is he?" he demanded.
"No," Peckover answered, "I—I mean he is so devoid of feeling."
The visitor caught up his crop and flourished it. "My poor sister is not, though," he roared, with a violence which even his possibly just resentment scarcely seemed to justify. "He promised to marry her, and then ran off. But we are on his track. Yes, I've got my broken-hearted sister waiting outside in the garden."
Peckover felt that he must have a few minutes' solitude in which to think out the solution of the awkward problem. "Hadn't you better go and fetch her in, while I tell Lord Quorn?" he suggested.
"I will," was the answer, given with a violent suddenness which made Peckover start. "And when I catch sight of his lordship," added the amiable zealot, "I'll astonish him. I'll—I'll make him jump."
"You'll astonish a good many people besides if you do," murmured Peckover dryly, as the bully flung off through the window. Here was a pretty situation. Was the good time he was enjoying and promising himself to turn into ash like a pipe of tobacco? Already thesoi-disantLord Quorn was complaining—and with some justice—that he was not having much fun for his money. Would he be likely to continue paying five thousand a year for the privilege of marrying an undesirable colonial maiden with the alternative of having his arms and legs snapped, possibly his nose slit and his eyes gouged out, if he refused? Not likely. Nor that he would care to wear the title when he found it carried so little fun and so many inconveniences with it. But what was he, Percy Peckover, to do? The situation baffled him. Temporize was all he could think of; temporize till he could hit on some expedient for ridding the position of this awkward element which threatened to spoil it. It was certainly exasperating just when he had settled down into a good thing to have to return to the hard world of work which he hated, poverty which he loathed, and his own identity of which he stood in terror. But this great noisy bully—ugh! how he would like to——
His bitter meditations were interrupted by footsteps on the path and next moment thebête noirereappeared, this time with the lady. The first anxious glance at her did nothing to dissipate Peckover's apprehensions. A fine woman she was certainly, according to the popular acceptation of the term—tall and massive, but coarse and off-hand almost to vulgarity. She had challenging black eyes, a nose which the most casual glance could never overlook, and a determined mouth and jaw. Her hair was cut short like a man's, and in her hand she swung a substantial ash stick which she seemed quite capable of using to enforce any argument which verbal persuasion had failed to drive home. As to her dress, it was of masculine cut, the skirt being deeply edged with leather. Altogether she was a formidable and workmanlike young woman.
Peckover had taken the precaution to latch the French window. Finding it did not yield to his heavy hand, the gentleman from Australia applied his boot to it and burst it open.
"This rotten window sticks," he remarked by way of apology. "Come in, Lalage. Mind the glass. This," he said aggressively to Peckover, "is my poor deceived sister, Miss Lalage Leo. My name is Carnaby Leo. Now, where's Lord Quorn?"
"In bed," answered Peckover manfully.
"What?" roared Mr. Leo.
"You need not shout," Peckover suggested, fearful that the noise might reach other ears and occasion complications. "We had an accident on the lake the other day, and he has been in bed ever since."
"We've heard of it," said Miss Leo, speaking for the first time. Her tone was as downright and masculine as her appearance. "And are you the rich young man who was rescued from drowning?"
"I am."
Brother and sister exchanged glances, and the glances, Peckover told himself, foretold a further complication.
"Lord Quorn is very seriously ill," he said impressively. "Took a bad chill, and is suffering from congestion and—and fever. It is quite impossible that you should see him for at least a fortnight, if he isn't dead by that date."
"I'll see him, dead or alive," shouted Mr. Leo, who was making a tour of inspection round the apartment.
"Be calm, Carnaby," said his sister casually.
"It would kill him," observed Peckover, with conviction.
"Killing's too good for him," returned Carnaby, loudly.
"Hush, Carnaby!" the lady commanded.
"He is delirious," said Peckover, warming to his work.
"I'll bring him to his senses," growled Leo.
"Better leave him to me for the present," suggested Miss Leo.
"He wouldn't recognize you, or you him," said Peckover, for once touching upon the truth.
"I'll soon let him know who we are," bellowed Mr. Leo, "and what we are—and what he is."
"Impossible, while he's in this state," Peckover maintained. "If you kill him——"
"Good job too!" Mr. Leo interpolated.
"He won't be much good for matrimonial purposes."
"True," Miss Leo admitted.
Peckover had noticed with some discomfort that of late her eyes had rested on him with increasing interest. He was always typically alive to the slightest sign of female attraction to himself, but this particular attention did not produce in him the usual sportive complacency. The situation was becoming tense. The very complexity of his position took from Peckover his usual volubility. Then he bethought himself of certain alcoholic sustenance which he and Gage kept in a closed cabinet in order to be able to indulge in it at uncanonical hours without the fuss of ringing and ordering drinks.Noblesse oblige, the new-fangled peer had observed in reference to his obligation to hide the evidence of irregular refreshment.
"Have a drink?" he suggested, as he whipped out a decanter of derelict sherry which a foraging tour of the cellars had discovered.
Mr. Carnaby Leo's interest in his surroundings seemed to deepen at the suggestion. "I will," he promptly responded, as he swooped down upon the wine. "Sherry!" He pronounced the word with a contortion of his fat face which might be construed into an indication of preference for some other beverage not immediately forthcoming; but he drank it, gulping down a glass at a swallow, nevertheless.
Suddenly Miss Leo turned to Peckover. "You are not married?" she demanded with startling significance.
"Not yet," he answered, blanching.
"Engaged?"
She stood over him breathing a fell design, her black eyes transfixing him, and seeming to wither his flippant courage to the very root. Still he made a feebly desperate effort to stave it off. "Not quite. Almost. Practically," he stammered.
"That's a trifle," the lady returned with masterful decisiveness. "Easily got over." Then to his relief she turned her blighting gaze from him and directed it meditatively to the expanse of park beyond the window. "I think," she said musingly, "that in any event I see my way out."
"Yes, that is the best way out," murmured Peckover as loudly as he dared, following her gaze.
But she ignored the rash speech, and for some moments the silence was broken only by the smacking of Mr. Leo's lips as he endeavoured to impart gusto into his occupation.
Peckover, dreading the next words, was about to call attention to the beauty of the landscape when Miss Leo suddenly turned upon him, and, as though struck by an exceptionally brilliant idea, said—"In the event of my not being Lady Quorn, why should I not marry you?"
"Oh, bother!" Peckover was startled into the expression of disagreement. "Why should you?" he objected manfully.
"If I set my mind upon it," she said, with a dangerous look in her eye.
"Please take it off," he protested. "Lord Quorn is my friend; he saved my life, I could not be so base as to rob him of you."
"No," the lady replied dryly, "you wouldn't if I wanted him. But I'm not so sure about it. Anyhow, in case the poor fellow doesn't get better, why, he couldn't complain."
"No, that would be my work," Peckover reflected anxiously.
"Weak stuff, this," exclaimed Mr. Leo. "Brandy neat is my sauce. Can't taste sherry."
"It's not for want of trying," Peckover thought, as he noticed the almost empty decanter, but he did not say so.
"Isn't he a fine fellow?" murmured Miss Leo, with an unwelcome approach to affectionate confidence. "Be nice to him and he'll soon take to you."
"He has soon taken to the sherry," was Peckover's mental commentary.
"Strong as a lion," said Lalage, waxing enthusiastic.
"And thirsty as a dozen," Peckover told himself.
"Carnaby, dear," his sister called sweetly, "I want you and Mr. Gage to be great friends. We are so already," she added caressingly to the unhappy Peckover; "more than friends, eh?"
"Don't seem to have lost much time," was her brother's not unnatural comment as he leered at their victim.
Peckover felt that if he did not take a firm stand at once he was lost. "I quite agree with you," he replied boldly, addressing himself to the still thirsty Mr. Leo and ignoring the lady's blandishments. "There is no need to be in such a deuce of a hurry. You see"—he took courage to face his would-be enslaver—"I never set eyes on you till ten minutes ago."
Miss Leo's face changed swiftly from affection to resentment. "Carnaby," she exclaimed, as an ill-boding light flashed from her eyes, "do you hear that?"
Carnaby, disturbed in his employment of draining the last drops out of the decanter, responded loudly, and, it seemed a trifle perfunctorily, "Never set eyes? All right. I'll take them out for you, and reset them directly."
"But I'm not the man you want," Peckover protested.
"Nobody," roared Leo, "will want you much after I've shaken hands with you."
"I want Lord Quorn," Miss Leo declared resolutely. "Failing Lord Quorn, I'll take you."
"Well, but——" Peckover began to expostulate, when Mr. Leo rolled up and stopped him.
"Now, look here, my pretty dickey-bird," he explained grimly, "I'm gentle up to a point, because my sweet sister doesn't like bloodshed. That poker," he pointed to the broken steel, "was his lordship's right arm; here is yours."
He caught up the shovel, and with a quick movement snapped it, throwing the pieces back into the fender with emphatic and dismaying clatter.
"Would you mind listening to me?" urged Peckover, regarding the object-lesson as unpleasantly superfluous.
But the man of strength disregarded his appeal. "I shan't hurt you yet," he declared with an under-lying threat, as he caught up the tongs and flourished them. He opened and closed them with a snap several times uncomfortably near Peckover's nose. "Both legs," he exclaimed, as, putting forth a mighty effort, he twisted and broke them, throwing them down with the same provoking clangour.
"I tell you," Peckover declared desperately, "this house is not mine. It is not even at this moment Lord Quorn's. It is let furnished. I wish you would not interfere with the fire-irons."
"I'm not particular," Leo returned. "Can't stop to go into the ownership of fire-irons. You've seen what I'm capable of; now send 'em up to his lordship with my compliments."
"Lord Quorn is not at home here at present," Peckover insisted.
"A lord," said Lalage, "is at home anywhere."
The thought of the real Lord Quorn crossed Peckover's mind.
"Fine thing to be a lord," he reflected bitterly. "That poor chap has missed this fun." Then seeing Carnaby evidently on the look-out for fresh worlds, or, rather, domestic implements, to conquer, he turned desperately to Lalage. "I say," he proposed seriously, "can't we compromise this?"
The words, or at least one of them caught the ear of her brother, on whom possibly the sherry was beginning to take effect. "Compromise, you wombat?" he bawled. "Compromise my beautiful sister?"
"No, no, Carnaby," protested the beautiful one in question, with a look at Peckover which gave unmistakable point to her words, "how absurd you are."
"Compromise my precious sister, you slink!"
"No, no," Peckover objected, getting quite reckless between the two fires; "not your precious sister. How absurd you are!"
Next instant the giant had sprung at him and had him in his grip. "Absurd? Am I? I'll wring your neck!"
"I mean settle," Peckover explained in a shriek.
"I'll settle you," was the retort, emphasized by a tightening grip.
"I mean settle with money," gasped the tortured one, hoping the magic word might have a relaxing effect upon the stricture.
But whatever might have been its effect upon his tormentor's mind when unclouded by alcohol, it had now the reverse of the desired result. "Money!" he cried in maudlin indignation as he threw him off, "what is money where the honour of my lovely Lalage is concerned?"
Peckover had come to the inevitable conclusion that it would be worth his while to make some pecuniary sacrifice in order to get out of the difficulty. He would do well to jettison part of the cargo of his ship which had seemed to be coming home so nicely.
"You see," he explained, "much as my friend Quorn may admire your sister, he will be bound to marry a rich girl to support his title."
"A peer wants a lot of keeping up, I suppose," growled Mr. Leo, taking out another bottle from the cabinet and shaking it viciously, demonstrating by his action that a bush-bully requires a certain amount of keeping-up as well.
"It stands to reason," Peckover replied. "Now," he added insinuatingly, "if a hundred pounds——"
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when he was sorry he had uttered them. There was an explosion, a smash, and the little table with its contents was lying on the floor broken by a thump from the mighty fist.
"Hundred devils!" Mr. Leo roared.
So far as he dared, Peckover began to lose his temper. "I wish you would not smash things," he ventured to remonstrate. "I'll take your word for your muscle."
"My muscle prefers to speak for itself," was the retort.
"It need not talk with such a deuced lot of emphasis," Peckover rejoined. "What do you say," he added, returning to business, "to two hundred pounds?"
"Don't you wish I may take it?" exclaimed the fair Lalage with infinite scorn.
"You can't expect any more," Peckover urged. "Lord Quorn is a very poor man."
"Is he?" Lalage asked, becoming thoughtful.
"Certainly he is. Really not worth looking after. Now," he added, coaxingly. "Can't you put a fair price on your journey?"
"What price my glorious sister's broken heart?" bellowed Mr. Leo, truculently maudlin.
"Damaged goods half price," was Peckover's inaudible reply.
"Eh, you scallywag?" The big man advanced upon him threateningly. "Let me go into figures with your beautiful Lord Quorn. Once before a man played the fool with Lalage, and we got five thousand pounds out of his executors."
"Executors?" repeated Peckover, interested in spite of more urgent considerations. "Poor fellow died then?"
"Yes, you see Carnaby called upon him," Lalage explained sweetly.
"Now," proceeded Mr. Leo, always with unnecessary volume of tone, "before I proceed to extremities, I should like to know from you, as his lordship's friend, how we stand."
It occurred to Peckover that the chances were that either he or both would stand on two stumps before long if the weather did not change. "Name your own sum for the return ticket," he said desperately.
Mr. Leo walked up and placed his hands upon Peckover's shoulders with such energy that the smaller man wondered he did not collapse into his boots. "Does he mean it?" he cried, glaring tipsily into Peckover's contorted face. "Not he! Look at his eye; it's shifty."
The victim considered he might esteem himself lucky if the feature in question did not shift out of his head forthwith.
"We must take time," said Lalage, laying a repressing hand on her brother's arm.
"We'll stay a week or two with you," Mr. Leo declared; "till his lordship has decided whether he will remain on above ground or not."
It occurred to Peckover that the property would be considerably out of repair by that time, but he recognized that a refusal was at the moment quite out of the question. Then, as Mr. Leo, having given him a preliminary shake, released him from his clutch by sending him backwards with uncalled-for violence against a floor lamp which was not improved by the contact, the door opened and Miss Ethel Hemyock looked in. "Oh, Mr. Gage, I have only just got rid of poor Mr. Sharnbrook."
The young lady came in with a smile for Peckover and a doubtful glance at the strangers. Perhaps Miss Leo's appearance suggested to her ignorance that she had not much to fear from that quarter in the way of rivalry; anyhow, her look changed to one of easy graciousness as Peckover, awkwardly enough, introduced them.
"Let me present some Australian friends of mine," he said.
"Very great friends," added Lalage, with a significant smile.
"More than friends; brothers, eh, Gage, my boy," put in Carnaby taking the cue from his sister, and accompanying the words with a slap which nearly dislocated Peckover's shoulder.
"Oh," said Miss Ethel, rather drawing back, and looking enquiringly at Peckover.
"So pleased to know all your friends, dear," observed Lalage with mischievous significance. "I am sure we shall be great friends, Miss—Miss——"
"Ethel Hemyock," the young lady supplied frigidly, the word "dear" having congealed her.
Lady Agatha and Dagmar came in. The hostess' look of enquiry at the sight of the abnormal visitors was cut short by Ethel's anxious enquiry. "Where is Mr. Sharnbrook?"
The tone suggested to her mother's sharp ears that something was wrong.
"Mr. Sharnbrook has just gone."
"He is staying to luncheon?"
"No," Dagmar answered. "Mother did not ask him."
"He must!" Ethel exclaimed, making for the door.
"Ethel!" Dagmar cried, as she sprang after her.
Lady Agatha, scenting mischief, turned to Peckover. "Will you present your—friends?" she said coldly.
Peckover, roused from the natural preoccupation induced by his position, did so. "Miss Leo, Mr. Leo——"
"Friends from the Bush?" Lady Agatha enquired superciliously, eyeing through her "witherers" Lalage's short hair and short dress.
"Yes—just so," Peckover answered in his confusion.
"What?" roared Carnaby. "Bush? I'll bush you!"
"Carnaby," his sister remonstrated, "be calm. Yes, we are just from Australia."
"Friends of Mr. Gage's?" Lady Agatha enquired, in a tone of disgusted resignation.
"Friends of Lord Quorn," Peckover corrected swiftly.
"And of Mr. Gage's, I should hope," Lalage added with an embarrassing show of affectionate insistence.
"Ah!" said Lady Agatha, transferring her attention and her glasses to Carnaby, "Lord Quorn's former sheep partner, perhaps?"
"What?" shouted the worthy fellow, more bellicose than usual under the influence of the sherry. "Sheep partner?"
"It is not necessary," observed Lady Agatha with cutting distinctness, "to speak so loud. I am not aware that any one in the room is deaf."
"What," demanded Carnaby of Peckover in a roaring whisper, "does the old lady mean by calling me a sheep partner?"
"Hush! It's all right," he replied. "She thinks you are an Australian swell—a mutton-king."
"Mutton king?" Carnaby bawled, raising his arm as though to pulverize his insulter.
The evidences of his strength had meanwhile attracted Lady Agatha's attention. "Are you," she asked severely, "the person who has been taking liberties with the fire-irons?"
"Yes," answered Carnaby with justifiable pride. "I just snapped them to amuse this little wombat." Then, as a brilliant afterthought, he suggested—"Shall I ring for some more and show you how it is done?"
"By no means," was the frigid answer. "I should very much object to be shown anything of the sort. And I must request you, if your friends need amusement, to choose some other method of providing it."
"All right, don't be alarmed," replied Carnaby, on whom her grand tone was quite wasted. "Winter's coming on and I won't reduce the stock; I've got something more interesting to break than fire-irons."
"By the way," Lady Agatha observed, "we saw a strange and not very prepossessing person in the shrubbery by the drive just now. Was he by any chance a friend of yours?"
"Not likely, ma'am," Carnaby answered, "unless it was Lord Quorn, and this little wallaby tells us he is in bed."
"It was not Lord Quorn," said Lady Agatha.
The Misses Ethel and Dagmar came in breathless, with Sharnbrook between them, looking as a pick-pocket might under escort of two policemen.
"We caught him, mother, at the drive gate. I told him how sorry you were you had let him go when you meant to insist upon his staying to luncheon."
"Of course," Lady Agatha corroborated, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had practically sent him off as having no further use for him. "Mr. Sharnbrook might have known we never could be so inhospitable."
Sharnbrook gave an enquiring glance at Peckover, who could only helplessly reply by a sign directing his attention to Miss Leo, at sight of whom hope gave way to despair in the Sharnbrook bosom. Bisgood announced luncheon. Lady Agatha's look at Peckover said as plainly as speech—"What are you going to do with these impossible people?" And under the look he felt more limp and nonplussed than ever.
Under the circumstances Peckover was actually relieved when the tension of the situation was snapped by a loud exclamation of satisfaction from Carnaby. "Lunch! Good! I'm all there!" With a stride he placed himself by Lady Agatha's side, and offered her his arm with what might be supposed to stand in the Bush for the grand manner. Ignoring his arm, Lady Agatha crossed her own and walked stiffly and resentfully from the room. By no means abashed, Carnaby looked round and pounced upon Dagmar, who, having lost Sharnbrook in a struggle for him with her sister, was also disappointed of getting Peckover, whom Miss Leo had taken prompt care to annex. But Carnaby was hardly acceptable, even as a consolation prize. Dagmar drew back and made a sudden dart after her mother leaving the rest to follow in various degrees of discontent.
"Oh, mother," she exclaimed breathless with indignation, "what appalling people! We had better keep an eye on the silver. Do you know, I saw that horrid man again in the shrubbery just now."
As the last of the party were pressing through the library door "that horrid man" came up to the window and looked furtively in. It was none other than Lord Quorn, the real Lord Quorn; he who had drunk Peckover's drugged champagne at theQuorn Armsat Great Bunbury.
"I've had enough of this, I'm going to get up," Mr. Gage, thesoi-disantLord Quorn, declared, as Peckover after luncheon devoted a few minutes of his present complicated existence to visit that impatient patient.
"No, you don't."
"Won't I?" was the querulous rejoinder. "Why not? The doctor's gone, and——"
"There's something worse than the doctor come," said Peckover with a long face.
"I don't know what's worse than the doctor, unless it's the undertaker," returned Gage.
"Well, I do," said Peckover feelingly. "A most unfortunate thing has happened. A girl who I was a bit sweet on out there has followed me over."
Gage whistled. "Then our game's all up. Of course she'll know you are Quorn and I am not."
"No," replied Peckover subtly. "I have made it all right about that. Told her there was a mistake and I was not the rightful heir."
"That was smart of you," Gage said with gloomy approval. "Well, what's the trouble, then. The lady doesn't expect me to marry her, does she?"
"Yes," answered Peckover with intensity, "she does."
"What?" Gage nearly landed out of bed in his surprise. "Me?" Then laughed incredulously.
"She says she has come six thousand miles to be Lady Quorn and she is going to be Lady Quorn."
"The deuce she is. How is she going to manage that?"
"By force."
"What?" Gage shouted. "Marry me by force?"
"Yes," answered Peckover seriously. "You see, she has brought her brother with her, a dare-devil rampaging brute of a bush-ranger, six foot three tall, and broad in proportion, who sticks at nothing but your favourite vital part with a bowie knife."
"I'd like to see him," Gage observed scornfully
"You will, if you get out of bed and come downstairs," returned Peckover impressively. "Also you will have an opportunity of remarking the havoc he has made with the fire-irons."
"What? Fire-irons?"
"He has been snapping a few pokers and tongs just to show what he will do with you when he catches you."
"What absurd rot," Gage said with rising exasperation. "I never had anything to do with the brute's sister."
"But you have got to marry her," rejoined Peckover quite seriously, "or take the consequences."
"Oh, have I?"
"Yes; you had better stop in bed."
"Had I?" Gage exclaimed, flinging off the clothes. "I rather think I'll get up and hand the ruffian over to the police, as you don't seem to have thenousto do it."
"Not I," returned Peckover shrewdly. "Not quite such a fool. Once open police-court proceedings, and our little arrangement will come out and be spoilt, even if nothing else happens."
"Well, what are we to do?" Gage demanded, recognizing the weight of his friend's objection.
"You stop in bed," said Peckover, with an air of authority based upon expediency.
"D——d if I do," Gage retorted.
"If you don't, you'll have to," replied Peckover with truth underlying paradox. "A fortnight of the downy is better than six months of the plank."
"What, stop here for a fortnight?" Gage cried wrathfully. "It's a regular take in. A rollicking time I'm having for my money; cold-shouldered, half-drowned, and now tucked up in this beastly bed for weeks. Where does Lord Quorn come in?"
"Lord Quorn," observed Peckover sententiously, "will go out if Mr. Carnaby Leo gets hold of him. He has got a museum at home of pickled ears, and eyes and noses, et cetera, of which he has deprived certain parties who didn't do as he told them. After all," he added persuasively, "it is better to stop in bed with the schedule of your features complete than to get up for a rollick and find some of the items missing."
"Why the devil didn't you tell me you'd been playing the fool with a bush-ranger's sister?" Gage snapped savagely. "I wouldn't have looked at you or your title. You've got my money under false pretences."
"You never gave me time to go into my past history," was the plausible reply. "You might have known when you took over a peerage you were letting yourself in for something of the sort. You know it's a way we have."
"A pretty brilliant way, to get tangled up with bush-rangers," sneered Gage.
"He didn't come on the scene till an hour ago. I suppose, by the way," he suggested mischievously, "you would not care to marry her, and so see your way to getting out of bed without damage?"
"Marry ten thousand devils! That's not my idea of fun."
"Lalage is a fine figure of a woman," Peckover continued. "Make an imposing Lady Quorn. Fine mover; takes the drawing-room in three, including anything that stands in the way. The coronet would suit her better if she'd let her hair grow."
"Crops her hair short?" Gage enquired, in a tone of infinite disgust at the picture.
Peckover nodded. "Bit too much of the dragoon for our taste, my boy. You stop in bed, and let me try to get rid of them."
"I won't stop in bed," returned Gage. "Where are these brutes?"
"Sent 'em down toThe Pigeons," Peckover answered. "Lady Agatha wouldn't have 'em in the house. Don't blame her. Their manners aren't exactly Vere de Vere. Things were a bit awkward at lunch. Carnaby, the beauty, had been mixing his liquors and fell asleep with his ugly head in the salad bowl, and the tomato which Lalage aimed at him to wake him up, missed, and spattered on Bisgood's shirt-front. Lady Aggy wasn't pleased."
"It's all very well," said Gage sulkily, "but I'm going to get up. The woman can't make me marry her against my will, nor can the great ox, her brother."
"No," Peckover agreed, "but he can have a good try for it, and the process might not be pleasant."
"I never heard such nonsense."
"No; I wouldn't have believed it," said Peckover, "if I hadn't had the fellow's dukes round my windpipe. He is just a buffalo in trousers. And if you get up, and shy at the sister, who is a hyæna in petticoats, you'll know it; that is, if he leaves you in a state to know anything."
"A pretty abominable treat you've let me in for," said Gage sourly. "But I'm not going to stay in this four-poster. You've got to go and square this at once. Ask them what they'll take to go back."
"I've offered them a couple of hundred," Peckover replied, "and got nearly strangled for my trouble."
"Couple of hundred!" said Gage contemptuously. "You'll have to make it thousands and take it out of your five."
"Oh, I say!" the other protested.
"All right; if you don't," Gage declared resolutely, "I'll chuck the title and leave you and your friends to fight it out among yourselves. If she means Lord Quorn she shall have him, but not me, my boy. And I'm not going to stop between the sheets for any bush-ranger in Australia or out of it. So there!"
After Lord Quorn—supposed to be Percy Peckover—had been carried to Dr. Barton's surgery, he lay for several days in a state of now total, now semi, unconsciousness. The astute Mr. Doutfire, pluming himself on his neat capture, hovered about the unfortunate peer, drank whisky and water with the much-bored medico, and discussed over sundry cigars the chances of the patient's slipping through his fingers into the next world. The object of his solicitude did slip through them, though not quite so far as that. And it happened in this wise.
When Doutfire was not himself on guard (to the accompaniment of nicotine sedatives and alcoholic tonics) he took care to post a constable about the doctor's premises with instructions to keep a sharp look-out for any sign of activity on the part of the lethargic criminal. Then suddenly the police authorities of Bunbury and district were thrown into a state of excitement by the news of a daring burglary which had taken place at Mansetter Park, the seat of Sir James Rumbelow, the importance of which crime was heightened by the fact that the stout baronet, roused from his post-prandial nap by the news, had unwisely attempted to pursue the thieves, who had by that time got four or five miles' start, and had cut short the chase, so far as he was concerned, by tripping over a croquet-hoop on the lawn and thereby severely injuring himself.
It was clearly a case that called for the utmost activity on the part of the representatives of the law; the Bunbury police force was on its mettle, and the fussy Mr. Doutfire became in a moment the incarnation of bustling importance. The comatose culprit at Dr. Barton's was forgotten in the gravity of Sir James Rumbelow's stolen plate and broken nose. And it so happened when the detective was reminded of him it was by a communication from headquarters announcing that Peckover's associate, Cutbush, had been arrested, and he had volunteered a statement which made it appear that there might not be much of a case against his dupe. Under the circumstances, Mr. Doutfire felt little hesitation in withdrawing the guard and drafting him into the Mansetter district, especially as the doctor assured him that he might be under no uneasiness as to the likelihood of the patient's being in a condition to get up and walk about.
Nevertheless, that is exactly what Lord Quorn did. Suddenly waking from a lethargic sleep, he stretched himself, sat up, looked round in a dazed fashion, and after a futile attempt to remember who and where he was, feeling an irresistible longing for fresh air, he got up, shuffled into his clothes, and walked unnoticed into the street.
It was market day; the noise and the bustle worried him, and in his weak state the jostling of the yokels was more than he could stand. So he turned into one of the quieter streets and thence wandered off into the country, his mind still a blank as to what had recently happened to him. Although the fresh air revived him and was grateful after the drug-laden atmosphere of the doctor's dispensary, yet it did not quite drive the fumes from his brain, and his existence and identity were, as he strolled on, as much a puzzle to him as ever.
"Have a lift?" asked a good-natured farmer, overtaking him on the dusty road, and noticing his dragging footsteps. Quorn mechanically got into the cart, in his aimless, drifting state of mind; all he knew was he had begun to feel tired and wanted to get right away from the place whence he had come.
"Going far?" inquired the farmer, as they bowled along.
"Far as you like," was the dull answer.
The farmer stared at him, and then proceeded to cross-examine him, with the result that he came to the conclusion that he had picked up an escaped lunatic. With this idea he resolved to set his passenger down at the first village they came to, which happened to be Staplewick. Finding Quorn had no money, the good fellow took out a coin and gave it him, in lieu, as it were, of taking him further, and drove off in a state of cogitation.
Naturally Quorn had been set down opposite an inn, the sight of which, combined with the touch of the silver in his hand, told him he was hungry and more especially thirsty. He went in and called for refreshment, and then took his seat in a room which had already two occupants. They were no others than Messrs. Fanning and Purvis, who, after their discomfiture at the Towers had dropped in atThe Pigeonsto discuss their all-absorbing grievance.
Until Quorn's hunger and thirst were appeased he paid little attention to his companions, but when he had pushed his plate away and lighted up the churchwarden pipe that the house afforded, he fell to listening lazily to the unrestrained emphasis of their remarks.
"Fi'pun note! Fi'pun note!" exclaimed Mr. Fanning almost tragically. "And his blooming lordship, who didn't do nothin' more in the water than a cat would 'a done, smothered with wealth, just because 'e 'appens to 'ave a 'andle to his name. Mean, I call it; low mean."
"That it is," agreed Purvis. "And 'im adding insult to injury telling us to get a noo rig-out, and keep the change for our trouble. Noo rig-out? I'll wear my old boots and breeches down to the last nail and stitch first."
"Right!" exclaimed Fanning, with an energy which ignored the æsthetic considerations which such a proceeding would involve. "Fi'pun note!" he repeated, relapsing into his now chronic state of truculent grievance. "Fi'pun note for us poor deserving 'eroes, and two hundred thousand quid for that bit of gilt gingerbread, Lord Quorn."
"What?"
In a flash of enlightenment the real Lord Quorn jumped from his seat, and stood staring at the two men with distended eyes. "By Gum! You said Lord Quorn?"
"I did," Fanning declared, half defiantly, as not quite sure whether he had not opened his mouth rather too wide and too often. "I said Lord Quorn, and I meant Lord Quorn, but my grievance ain't agin 'is lordship. I blame no man for takin' wot's offered. Wot I blame and 'ate and detest is the meanness of those 'oo call themselves gents and reward a man not accordin' to the services rendered, but accordin' to persition in life."
The trenchant pronouncement was entirely wasted on the person to whom it was addressed.
"Lord Quorn!"
He had started to his feet with a great cry of self-recognition. The word seemed to have pierced the mist of oblivion which clouded his brain, and the incidents of the last hour of his former waking existence came thronging to his memory. Lord Quorn? Why, of course, he was Lord Quorn; although exactly what had happened to him in consequence he could not make out. "Lord Quorn?" he demanded eagerly of the astonished pair of grievance-nursers. "What about him?"
"Do you know his lordship?" Fanning asked suspiciously.
"I ought to."
"Well, then," said the butcher resentfully, "you know the man who has earnt two 'undred thousand quid quicker and easier than any man ever did before. Look 'ere!" Determined to speak his mind to his lordship through his acquaintance, Fanning jumped up and tapped Quorn impressively on the chest to emphasize his story. "Wot do you think o' this, mister? Lord Quorn and a rich millionaire friend of 'is—I won't call 'im a gentleman—goes out fishin' on the lake. They fools themselves overboard into the water, and is within an ace of drownin'. This gentleman," indicating Purvis who sat stolidly blinking with conscious merit, "and me, goes to the rescue, and at the risk of our lives pulls 'em out when they were just at the last gasp. What 'appens? My nobleman persuades 'is friend that it was 'e 'oo saved 'is life, and ignores what me and this gentleman done. Again wot 'appens? Millionaire, 'oo, in my opinion ain't fit to own two and sixpence, ups and settles a couple of 'undred thousand sov'rins on his lordship, and when me and this gentleman who 'ad risked our lives and ruined our best suit of clothes 'appens to ask where we comes in—what do you think?—'ee fobs us off with a beggarly fi'pun note."
"I wouldn't have taken it," Quorn commented wonderingly, as he recovered from the extra hard slap with which the last words were driven home.
Mr. Fanning waggled his greasy head knowingly. "P'raps you wouldn't, mister. But you didn't catch me nor this gentleman playin' into 'is 'ands by refusin' it."
"That accounts for it," said Quorn, following his own train of thought rather than Mr. Fanning's biassed narrative. "That accounts for it. I've been half drowned. Funny I don't remember anything about it."
"You?" exclaimed Mr. Fanning.
"According to your story," Quorn maintained.
Mr. Fanning turned a glance on Mr. Purvis which suggested a grave doubt as to their companion's sobriety. "Oh," he replied sarcastically, "and 'oo may you be?"
"Well," answered Quorn deliberately, "I rather think I'm Lord Quorn."
Again Mr. Fanning's glance sought Mr. Purvis', and this time it indicated a diagnosis of more serious mental trouble than mere alcohol would account for.
"Oh, you think that, do you?" he returned with gentle banter. "Then," he added mischievously, "I should recommend your lordship goin' up to the Towers 'ere, and turnin' out the party 'oo is at present occupyin' your position."
"Oh?" Quorn started up as a fresh puzzle took hold of his mind. "Is that so?"
Instead of replying directly to his questioner, Mr. Fanning turned to his friend, and somewhat exasperatingly repeated the enquiry to him. "Is that so, Mr. Purvis?" Then with an exaggerated wink, he added, "Yes, no doubt about it, there's a screw loose somewheres."
Quorn stared at him for a moment, and then turned to the door. "What's the name of the place?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Your lordship's residence?" grinned Fanning. "Staplewick Towers." And as the door shut upon their late companion the two aggrieved heroes indulged in the first merriment they had found the heart for since it had been borne in upon them that their gallantry was held so cheap.