The rejoicings into which London broke out when, at last, the Scottish rebellion was decisively crushed caused Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens to be, perhaps, more frequented in the warm spring and summer of 1746 than they had ever been previously. Indeed, after the fright which had fallen upon the capital when the news came that the Highland troops were at Derby and within four days' march of London, it was not very astonishing that the inhabitants should, on the removal of that terror, give themselves up to wholesale amusement. Six months before, imminent ruin stared them in the face; the Bank of England, by that time regarded as being almost as stable an institution as it is now considered, had only escaped closing its doors by the oft-quoted artifice of paying the demands made on it in sixpences. Regiments engaged in foreign campaigns--Ligonier's Horse and Hawley's and Rich's Dragoons--had been hurried home from Williamstadt; Admiral Vernon and Commodores Boscawen and Smith were each at sea with a squadron looking for ships carrying the invaders; while fifty merchantmen, styled "armed cruisers," were patrolling the Channels round our shores. Also, as an outcome of the panic, the inhabitants of London had purchased for the army about to take the field against the Pretender, 12,000 pairs of breeches and the same number of pairs of woollen gloves, 12,000 shirts, 10,000 woollen caps and pairs of stockings, and 9,000 pairs of woollen spatterdashes; while, not to be outdone by the other citizens, the managers of the then existing London theatres offered to form the members of their various companies into volunteers attached to the City regiment.
But, ere the springtime had come, the invasion was over, the danger past. The young Duke of Cumberland, fresh from his triumphs in Flanders, had not only destroyed the rebel army, but had taken terrible and bloody vengeance upon all who had opposed him.[Note C]Therefore London--indeed, all England--slept again in safety at night, and with the arrival of summer had plunged with greater fervour than ever into all its usual enjoyments. Amongst the enjoyments of the former none were more popular than those of Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens, the latter being more generally known and spoken of at that period as the Spring Gardens. Here, on the warm evenings which May brought with it, until the fashionable world departed for its country seats, or for Bath, Epsom, or Tunbridge, went on one continual round of pleasures and festivities--one night a masquerade, another a concert, vocal and instrumental, where, among others, the mysterious Tenducci--whose sex was always matter of discussion--sang and warbled, sometimes in a man's voice, sometimes in a woman's; illuminations took place every evening, and, as they died out and the company departed, the nightingales might be heard singing in the neighbouring fields and groves.
It was on one of these warm May nights that the wherry which brought Lady Belrose's party from Pimlico Fields to the Spring Gardens arrived at the latter place, while, as the boat touched the shore, from the gardens might already be heard the orchestra playing. In the wherry sat, of course, Lady Belrose herself, a still young and still good-looking woman, who, being a widow, thought herself entitled to always have in attendance upon her some beau or other, and who, to-night, had brought two, one a young lad from Oxford, the other almost as young a man, Sir Charles Ames. By her side sat Lady Fordingbridge, whose plain evening frock contrasted somewhat strongly with that of her friend, who was arrayed in a gorgeous brocade silk, while one of her cavaliers carried over his arm a green velvet mantle laced with gold, in case the evening turned cold and she should have occasion for it.
"I protest," said her ladyship, as stepping ashore she put on her mask, in which she was copied by the others--"I protest the very sound of the fiddles squeaking makes me long for a dance. Mr. Fane," she said, turning to that gentleman, who formed the last member of the party, "am I to have you for a partner to-night?"
Fane bowed and responded politely that he only trusted his old age and stiff joints would not prevent him from making himself acceptable, on at least one occasion, to her ladyship; while Sir Charles Ames, turning to Kitty, desired to know if she would so far favour him as to give him a dance.
But Lady Belrose, who had already gathered from her friend that she only made one of the party because of a serious and grave interview which she anticipated having with a gentleman whom she might meet at thefête, here interposed and, in a few well-chosen words, gave the baronet to understand that to dance was not Lady Fordingbridge's desire that evening. "She is not well," she said, "and will simply be an onlooker. Meanwhile, doubtless I can find you a sufficiency of partners among other friends." To this the young man protested that there was no need for Lady Belrose to endeavour to find him partners among her friends, since, if she would but condescend to be his partner, he could not possibly desire any other, and so, with these interchanges of politeness, they entered the gardens.
On this particular night at Vauxhall--the opening masquerade of the season--the fashionable world, as well as those who, though not in that world themselves, loved to gaze on the happier beings who were of it, assembled in large numbers and in a variety of costumes. Scaramouches in their black dresses, toques and masks, with rush lances in their hands, mingled with dancing girls clad in the Turkish costumes still known in these days as "Roxanas," in memory of the infamous woman who had first worn this garb; shepherdesses walked arm-in-arm with men dressed as grave and reverend clergymen; assumed victims of the Inquisition, invested in the San Benito, pirouetted and twirled with brazen-faced and under-clad Iphigenias and Phrynes--for the world was none too modest in those days!--mock soldiers, knights and satyrs, harlequins, and men in wizard's garments danced and drank, laughed and shouted with milkmaids, nuns, and Joans of Arc. And to testify, perhaps, the fact that they had not forgotten the dangers through which the country had recently passed, and also, perhaps, to hurl one last taunt at their crushed and broken foes, many of the maskers had arrayed themselves in the garbs of their late enemies--for some strutted round and round the orchestra pavilion and banqueting room dressed as Highlanders or French officers, others as miserable Scotch peasants having in their hands flails and reaping hooks. Others, again, had even attempted to portray the character of the unhappy Charles Edward, now in hiding in the Scotch wilds, and, as they danced and sang or drank their glasses of ale and ate their twopenny slices of hung-beef, and endeavoured even by their conversation to ape what they imagined to be the Scotch dialect. At the same time, outside all this seething, painted, and bedizened crowd were many others of the better classes, such as those who formed Lady Belrose's party, or visitors of a similar degree, who contented themselves by concealing their identity with masks, vizards, and dominos, or with hoods and laces.
In a somewhat retired spot beneath where stood a noble statue of Handel, now nearing his last days, executed by Roubiliac, and at the back of which were a small wooded green and bosquet in which were many arbours, Lady Belrose and her friends sat down to watch the kaleidoscopic crowd. Here, Sir Charles Ames, summoning a waiter, bade him bring refreshments for the party--viz., some iced fruits and a flask of champagne--and they being partaken of, he invited her ladyship to honour him by becoming his partner in aquadrille de contredanse, a new style of dancing introduced into the French ballets a year or so before, and but just come over to London. This the sprightly lady accepted at once, having already perfected herself in the new divertissement under Duharnel's tuition; but, on her other cavalier desiring also the honour of Lady Fordingbridge's hand, Kitty refused, on the ground that she knew not the dance, and neither was she very well.
"I' faith, Kate," said Lady Belrose, as she shook her sack over her great balloon-shaped hoop and fastened her mask more tightly under her hood, "yet have you lost but little to-night. The quadrille is well enough in our own houses or on our country lawns; here, I protest, the noise, the dust, and the stench of the oil lamps, to say nothing of the unknown and, doubtless, unclean creatures with whom we rub shoulders and touch hands, do not recommend it overmuch. However, lead me to it, Sir Charles, since you will have it so," and in another moment she, with her partner and the others who formed the sets, were bowing and curtseying to each other.
Meanwhile Mr. Wynn, Lady Belrose's second string, having begged that he might be allowed to find a partner and himself join in a set, since Lady Fordingbridge was so obdurate (he, too, had been learning the new dance from Monsieur Duharnel), took himself off, so that Kitty and her father were left alone together. And now it was that she, after scanning each male figure that was "more than common tall," began to tremble a little in her limbs and to feel as though she were about to faint. For in that portion of the crowd which was not dancing and which still followed its leaders round and round the orchestra pavilion, thereby illustrating the words of Bloomfield, a poet of the period, who wrote:
First we traced the gay circle all round,Ay--and then we went round it again--
First we traced the gay circle all round,Ay--and then we went round it again--
she saw two forms that, she doubted not, were those for whom she looked--partly in eagerness, partly with nervousness.
These maskers did not walk side by side, but one behind the other, and, possibly, to ordinary onlookers would not have appeared to have any connection with each other. Yet Kitty knew very well that, inseparable in almost all else, they were now equally so. The first, who was the tallest, was clad in a costume, perhaps unique that night in the Spring Gardens, perhaps almost unique among the many costumes that have ever been assumed since first masquerades were invented. It was that of the headsman. Arrayed in the garb of that dismal functionary, a rusty black velvet suit, with the breeches and black woollen stockings to match, the masker might yet have failed to inform those who saw him of the character he wished to portray, had it not been for at least one other accessory. On his back, strapped across it, he carried the long, narrow-bladed axe used for decapitation, its handle fringed and tasselled with leathern thongs. Yet there were other tokens also of the part he represented. In a girdle round his waistcoat he bore a formidable knife having a blade a foot long and an inch and a half deep--the knife with which the doomsman finished his ghastly task if the axe failed to do its duty, as had too often happened. His mask, too, was not that of the ordinary reveller at such places as this, not a mask made ostensibly to conceal the features, yet, as often as not, revealing them almost as clearly as though it had not been assumed; instead, it was long and full, covering not only the eyes and the bridge of the nose, but also the whole of the upper part of the face, and leaving only visible the lower jaw and the two ends of a thick brown moustache that hung below it. Alone by that moustache would Kitty have known the wearer, if by no other sign. It had been pressed too often against her own lips for her to forget it! Yet, also, would she have known him without it. His companion, the man who followed after him, was not so conspicuous by his appearance. He, indeed, wrapped in a long brown woollen cloak which descended to his shoes and must have been more than warm on such an evening as this, with at his side a Scotch claymore, or broadsword, and on his head a Scotch bonnet--the mask, of course, being worn--passed among the crowd as an excellent representative of their now despised and fallen enemies. Yet, had that crowd known that amongst them stalked in reality one whose prowess had been terribly conspicuous when exhibited against their own soldiers, they might not have gazed as approvingly as they now did on Douglas Sholto.
As Kitty regarded these two figures--still trembling and feeling as though she were about to faint--she saw the eyes of the former one fix themselves upon her, and observed him hesitate for a moment ere continuing his course, then, in an instant, he went on again in the stream that continued to revolve round the orchestra pavilion. And she knew that a few moments would bring him again before her.
"Father," she said, nerving herself to that interview which she so ardently desired, yet which, womanlike, she almost feared now, "the green behind looks cool and inviting, especially now that the sun is gone and the lamps are lit. I will stroll down there awhile and take the air. Meanwhile, rest you here--there is some more champagne in the flask--and keep these seats until the others come back. Thecontredansewill be finished just now."
"Mind no gallant treats ye rudely, child. The crowd is none too orderly as regards some of its members. Ladies alone, and without a cavalier, may be roughly accosted."
"Have no fear," she said, "I can protect myself. I shall be back ere Lady Belrose takes part in the next dance," saying which she turned and went down the walk that led between the grassy lawn and the arbours, in each of which now twinkled the many-coloured oil lamps. And, as she so turned, that portion of the maskers in which was the man dressed as the headsman passed by the chair she had just vacated, and she knew that he must have seen her rise and move away.
A few moments later she was aware that such was the case. A heavy tread sounded behind her--she had now advanced considerably down the path and had almost reached a rustic copse, in which were two or three small arbours--another instant, and the voice she longed yet feared to hear, the voice that she thought trembled a little as it spoke, addressed her:
"Is Lady Fordingbridge not afraid to separate herself from her party thus?" she heard Bertie Elphinston say--surely his voice quivered as he spoke. "Or does pity prompt her to do so; pity for another?"
"Lady Fordingbridge," she replied, knowing that her own voice was not well under control, "has no fear of anyone, unless it be of those whom, all unwittingly, she has injured." Then, scarcely knowing what she said, or whether her words were intelligible, and feeling at a loss what else to say, she gazed up at him and exclaimed, "You come to these festivities in a strange garb, sir. Surely the executioner's is scarcely a suitable one for a night of rejoicing."
"Yet suitable to him who wears it. Perhaps 'tis best that I who may apprehend----"
"Oh, Mr. Elphinston!" she exclaimed suddenly, interrupting him, "it was not to hear such words as these that I came here to-night. You know why I have sought this meeting; have you nought to say to me but this?"
"Yes," he replied, "yes. But let us not stand here upon the path exposed to the gaze of all the crowd. Come, let us enter this arbour. We shall be unobserved there."
She followed him into the one by which they were standing, and--for she felt her limbs were trembling beneath her--sank on to a rustic bench. And he, standing above her, went on:
"The letter that you sent to me asked that I should pity and forgive you. Kate, we meet again, perhaps for the last time on earth; let me say at once, there is nothing for me to forgive. If fault there was, then it was mine. Let mine, too, be the blame. I should have told you that Elphinston of Glenbervy was about to marry Mademoiselle Baufremont. Yet, he had sworn me to silence, had bidden me, upon our distant kinsmanship, to hold my peace, had sought my assistance to enable him to wed the woman whom he loved. How could I disclose his secret even to you? How could I foresee that a scheming devil would turn so small a thing to so great an account?"
"But," she said, gazing up at him and noticing--for both had instinctively unmasked at the same time--how worn his face was, how, alas! in his brown hair there ran grey threads though he was still so young; "but why, to all those letters I sent, was no answer vouchsafed? I thought from one or from the other some reply must surely come. Have you forgotten how, for many years now, we four--Douglas and Archibald, you and I--had all been as brothers and sister--until--until," she broke off, and then continued: "how we had vowed that between us all there should be a link and bond of friendship that should be incessable?"
"I have forgotten nothing," he replied, "nothing. No word that was ever spoken between us, no vow, nor promise ever made."
Again the soft blue eyes were turned to him, imploringly it seemed; begging by their glance that he should spare her. And, ceasing to speak of his remembrance of the past, he continued: "Circumstances, strange though they were, prevented any one of us from receiving your letters--or from answering them in time. I was lying ill of Roman fever at the English College; Archibald Sholto was in Tuscany in the train of Charles Edward, Cardinal Aquaviva having provided their passports; Douglas was with De Roquefeuille, and received your letter only on his return to Paris, where it had been sent back to him. Kate, in that stirring time, when the prince was passing from Rome to Picardy, was it strange no answer should come?"
"No, no," she replied. "No," and as she spoke she clasped both of her hands in her lap, and bent her head to hide her tears. Then she muttered, yet not so low but that he could hear her: "Had I but waited! but trusted!"
"It would have been best," he said very gently. And as he spoke, as though in mockery of their sad hearts, many of the maskers went by laughing and jesting, and the quadrille being finished the band was playing the merry old tune of "The Bird that danced the Rigadoon."
"You hear the air?" she said, looking up suddenly again. "You hear? Oh! my heart will break."
"Yes," he answered, "I hear."
That song in the old days in the Rue Trousse-Vache had been the air which Bertie Elphinston had whistled many a time to Kate to let her know that he was about to enter the "salle d'escrime," or to make her look out of the window and see the flowers he had brought her from his mother's garden in the suburbs. Also, on a Sunday morning early, he had often stood beneath the window of her room and had piped the "Rigadoon" to remind her that it was time for them to be away for their day's outing. For in those happy times--alas! but a year ago--these two fond, happy lovers had spent every Sabbath together and alone. Arm in arm the whole day; or, when the soft summer nights fell over the Bois de Boulogne, or the woods of St. Germain or the Forest of Fontainebleau, his arm round her waist and her soft fair head upon his shoulder, they had wandered together, taking a light meal here and there at any roadsideaubergethey happened on, and then both going back to supper, at her father's little house, where, as they had done all day, they talked of the future that was before them.
And now the future had come and they were parted for ever! No wonder that the old French song which had found its way to England grated harshly on their ears.
"Thank God, 'tis finished," he said, as the orchestra struck up a dance tune next. "For us, to our hearts, it awakens memories best left to slumber for ever." Then sitting down by her side on the rustic bench, he continued: "Kate, you wrote in your letter to me," and he touched his breast involuntarily as he spoke, so that she knew he bore it about him, "that there was private treachery to be feared. Is it to be feared from him?"
"Alas!" she whispered, "I almost dread 'tis so. He is not satisfied yet; he----"
"He should be! He has all I wanted."
"To injure you," she continued, "would be, as he knows, the best way to strike at me."
"To strike at you?"
"Yes, to repay me for my scorn and contempt--my hate of him."
"You hate him!" he exclaimed.
"From the depths of my heart. How can it be otherwise? His treachery--when I learnt it--made me despise him; his conduct since has turned my contempt to hatred. Oh," she exclaimed, "it is awful, terrible for a woman to hate her husband! Yet what cause have I to do aught else? When he speaks--though I have long since ceased to reply to anything he says--his words are nothing but sneers and scorn; sometimes of you, sometimes of me. And he gloats over having separated us, of having taken your place, while at the same time he is so bitter against me that, if he dared, I believe he would kill me. Moreover, he fears your vengeance. That is another reason why, if he could betray you to the Government, he would."
"'Tis by betrayal alone that we can be injured," Bertie said, thoughtfully. "None of our names are known, nor in the proscribed list. Yet how can he do it? He it was who planned the attack upon the Fubbs[2]to be made when the Elector crossed from Holland; he who disseminated the tracts, nay, had them printed, counselling his taking off. He was worse than any--no honest Jacobite ever stooped to assassination!--and many of us know it."
"Be sure," she replied, "that what he could do would be done in secret; Bert--Mr. Elphinston, who is that man who has passed the arbour twice or more, and looks always so fixedly at you?"
"I know not," he replied, "yet he has been ever near Douglas and me--he and another man--since we entered the gardens. Perhaps a Government spy. Well, he can know nought of me."
The man she had mentioned was a tall, stoutly-built individual, plainly enough clad in an old rusty black suit of broadcloth, patched black stockings and thick-soled shoes with rusty iron buckles upon them, and bore at his side a stout hanger. He might be a spy, it was true, but he might also have been anything else, a low follower of the worst creatures who infested the gardens, a gambling-hell tout, or a bagnio pimp. Yet his glance from under his vizard was keen and penetrating as it was fixed on them, but especially on Elphinston, each time he passed the summer house wherein they sat.
But now their conversation, which to both seemed all too short and to have left so much unsaid, was interrupted by the advent of Douglas Sholto, who came swiftly down the shell-strewn path, and, seeing them in the arbour, paused and entered at once.
"Kitty," he said, grasping her hand, "this is not the greeting I had intended to give you, though it's good to look upon your bonnie face again. But, Bertie, listen. We are watched, followed, perhaps known; indeed, I am sure of it. One of those fellows who have kept near to us, and whom we saw at Wandsworth as we set forth--I see the other down the path--spoke but now to three soldiers of the Coldstreams. Perhaps 'twas to identify us; you remember the First Battalion at Culloden," he added grimly; "perhaps to call on them for help. Bertie, we must be away at once."
"'Tis as I suspected," said Lady Fordingbridge, now pale as ashes and trembling from head to foot. "My words have too soon come true. How, how has he done it?"
"Farewell, Kate," said Bertie Elphinston, "we must, indeed, hasten if this is true. Yet first let me take you to your father and friends. Then," with a firm set look on his face, he said, "Douglas and I must see our way through this, if 'tis as he suspects. Come, Kate."
"No, no," she said, imploringly. "Wait not to think of me. Begone while there is yet time. Lose no moment. Farewell, farewell. We may meet again yet."
But ere another word could be said a fresh interruption occurred. From either end of the path that ran between the arbour and the lawn, both spies--for such they soon proclaimed themselves--advanced to where the others were; the first, the one of whom Kate had spoken, coming back from the end by the bosquet, the other from the platform where the orchestra and dancing were. And in the deepening twilight, for it was now almost dark, the three soldiers of the Coldstreams came too, followed by two others belonging to the "Old Buffs," a regiment also just brought back to London after Falkirk and Culloden. And behind these followed a small knot of visitors to the gardens who had gleaned that there was something unusual taking place, or about to do so.
"Your names," said the first man, who had kept watch over the movements of Elphinston, as he came close to the two comrades, while his own companion and the soldiers also drew very near, "are, if I mistake riot, Bertie Elphinston and Douglas Sholto. Is that the case?"
"My friend," said the former, "I would bid you have a care how you ask persons unknown to you, and to whom you are unknown, what their names are. It is a somewhat perilous proceeding to take liberties with strangers thus."
"You are not persons unknown to me. I can give a full description of your actions during the last year, which would cause you to be torn limb from limb by the people in this garden. As it is, I require you to go with us to the nearest magistrate, where I shall swear an information against you, and----"
"By what process," asked Douglas Sholto, "do you propose to carry out your requirements? By your own efforts, perhaps?"
"By our own efforts, aided by those of five soldiers here, of several others now in the Spring Gardens, and by the general company herein assembled, if necessary. But come, sirs, we trifle time away. Will you come, or won't you?"
For answer Douglas Sholto dealt the man such a blow with his fist that he fell back shrieking that his jaw was broken; while his comrade, calling on the soldiers for aid in the name of the King against rebels who had fought at Culloden, hurled himself on Elphinston, with his sword drawn and in his hand. But the latter, drawing from his back the long lean-bladed axe, presented so formidable an appearance, that the other shrank back appalled, though he called on the soldiers still for assistance.
"Beware," said Elphinston, as he ranged himself by the side of his friend, "beware! We are not men to be played with, and, as sure as there's a heaven above, if any of you come within swing of my arm, I'll lop your heads off!"
"The hound fought at Culloden; I saw him there," said one of the Coldstreams. "By heavens, I'll attempt it on him if he had fifty axes," and so saying he sprang full at the young Scotchman. As he came, the latter might have cleft his head open from scalp to chin, but he was a soldier himself; and the other had not drawn the short sword he wore at his side ere he flew at him. Therefore, he only seized him by the throat as he would have seized a mad bull-dog that attacked him, and in a minute had hurled the fellow back among the others. But now all the soldiers as well as the two police agents had had time to draw their weapons, and seven gleaming blades were presented at the breasts of the two young men when a timely assistance arrived.
Sir Charles Ames burst through the crowd on the outskirts of the antagonists, his own bright court rapier flashing in the air, and following him came Mr. Wynn and Doyle Fane, also with their weapons drawn.
"For shame! For shame!" said Sir Charles. "Five great hulking soldiers and two others against two men. Put up your weapons, or we'll make you."
"Put up your own," said one of the Old Buffs; "they are rebels. Curse them! We have met before," and as he spoke he lunged full at the breast of Elphinston.
"Hoot!" said Fane, the spirit of the old swordsman, the old Irishman, aroused at this, "if it's for tilting, my boys, come along. It's a pretty dance I'll teach ye. There, now, look to that." And with the easiest twist of his wrist he parried the soldier's thrust at Elphinston, with another he had slit the sleeve of the man's uniform to the elbow, while a thin line of blood ran quickly out from his arm.
"My word," he continued, "I've always said the worst hands in the world with a sword were soldiers--of these present days. Your mother's broom handles would suit ye better," whereon he turned his point towards another.
Meanwhile Sir Charles Ames had placed himself by Bertie and Douglas, and had already exchanged several passes with the others, when, stepping back a moment into the arbour, he saw to his intense astonishment the figure of Kitty, she being in a swoon, and consequently unconscious.
"Lady Fordingbridge," he murmured, "Lady Fordingbridge. So, so! A little assignation with our rebel friends. Humph! I'd scarce have thought it of her. However, 'tis no affair of mine, and as she's Molly Belrose's friend, why, I must be the same to her friends." Whereon he again took his place alongside the two Jacobites and assisted at keeping the others at bay.
But the crowd still augmented in their neighbourhood, and while the soldiers--all of whom had of late fought in Flanders as well as Scotland, and were as fierce as their chief, Cumberland--were pressing the others hardly, some of the livelier masqueraders began to feel disposed to assist one side or another. Therefore, 'twas almost a riot that now prevailed in the Spring Gardens; and as among the company there were numerous other Jacobites, who, although they had probably not been out with Charles Stuart, were very keen in their sympathies with his cause, they took the opportunity of joining the fracas on their own account and of breaking the heads of several Hanoverian supporters. And also, gathering that the scene arose from the attempted apprehension of two of their own leaning, they gradually directed their way towards the arbour where the affray had begun--summarily knocking down or tripping up all who opposed them, so that the next morning many shopboys, city clerks, and respectable city puts themselves appeared at their places of business with broken crowns, bruised faces, and black eyes.
At present nothing serious had occurred beyond a few surface wounds given on either side; the soldiers and police agents were no match for the five skilful swordsmen to whom they were opposed, and the latter refrained from shedding the blood of men beneath them.
"Yet," said Sir Charles Ames to Mr. Wynn, while he wiped his face with his lace-embroidered handkerchief, "if the canaille do not desist soon I must pink one for the sake of my gentility. Wynn, where is Lady Belrose during this pleasing interlude?"
"Safe in the supper room," replied the young beau. "She is very well. I saw to that. Ames, who are these stalwart Highlanders whose cause we espouse?"
"The devil himself only knows," replied the worldly exquisite. "Ha! would you?" to one of the Coldstreams as he tried a pass at him. "Go home, my man, go home. I know your colonel; you shall be whipped for this. Yet," he whispered to his friend, "I do think these knocks arepour les beaux yeux de madame. What's that shout?"
"The constables, I imagine."
"The more the merrier! Ha! Wynn, we are borne along the path. The deuce take it, we have lost the shelter of the arbour!"
"For Heaven's sake," whispered Elphinston to the baronet, "as I see you are a gentleman, go back and look to Lady Fordingbridge. I cannot see her after to-night--sir, on your honour, tell her 'All is well.' She will understand."
"On my honour, I will," the baronet replied. "London will be too hot for you--perhaps for me, too. I do fear I'm a little of a Stuart myself; but listen, my aunt, Lady Ames, lives at Kensington, by the Gravel Pits; direct a letter to--to the fair one, under cover to my respected relative, and she shall get it. Oh, no thanks, I beg; I have my ownaffaires de cœur. I know, I know----"
And now themêléebecame more general, and gradually the partisans of both sides were borne asunder, two only keeping together, Bertie and Douglas.
"Where is Fane?" whispered the former.
"With Kate. I saw him in the bower with her. Heaven grant----"
He was interrupted by a man who at this moment ranged himself alongside them both, and who muttered, "Follow me, through the copse here. There is an exit by which you can escape from the gardens. Back yourselves to the copse as easily as you can, then watch my movements."
"To leave her thus is impossible!" exclaimed Elphinston. "I cannot."
"Tush, nonsense!" replied Sholto, "her father is with her and our dandy friends by now. Come, come, we can do better for her and all of us by escaping than by being taken."
"But Fane; they will arrest him."
"If they do he has his answer. He was protecting his daughter. And her position will assure his. Come, Bertie, come. Once outside, we can seek new lodgings in another part of the town; put on new disguises. Come."
All the time this colloquy had taken place they had still been struggling with others, though by now the affray had lost the sanguinary character it once threatened to possess. The soldiers and the agents were separated from them by a mass of people, among whom were many of their sympathisers; but none were using deadly weapons, rather preferring buffeting and hustling than aught else. So that, as the tall man entered another summer house and, dragging Sholto and Elphinston after him, shut a door which guarded its entrance, the thing was done so quickly that the two originals of the disturbance had disappeared in the darkness ere they were missed.
"This," said the man, "is a private entrance and exit, reserved for some very high and mighty personages whom I need not mention. They are good patrons of ours--I am the proprietor's, Mr. Jonathan Tyers, chief subordinate. Also a Scotchman like yourselves, or by now you would probably have been taken. Hark to them!"
The people were howling outside, "Down with the rebels!" "Find the Culloden dogs and cut them to pieces!" etc., the soldiers' voices being heard the loudest of all, while in response many shouted, "Charlie Stuart for aye!" and some bolder spirits shrieked a then well-known song, "The Restoration," which had been originally composed in honour of the return of Charles II.
"Come," said the tall man, "come, your safety is here." Wherewith he opened another door in the back of the arbour and showed them a quiet leafy lane which was entirely deserted. "There," he continued, "is your way. Follow the grove in this direction, and 'twill bring you to Kennington," and he pointed south; "the other leads to the river. Fare ye well, and if you are both wise, quit London as soon as you have changed your garments. For myself I must go round to the front entrance; if I go back through the gardens I may be called to account by the mob for your escape."
Upon which, and not waiting for his countrymen's thanks, he took himself off quickly.
"Which way now, Bertie?" asked Douglas. "Wandsworth is done with. Where to?"
"To Kensington. I, at least, must watch the square to see if Kate gets safe back to her home."
"Then we go together. Only, what of these accursed clothes? We must make shift to get rid of them."
To put the river between them and their late antagonists and would-be captors naturally occurred to the young men as their wisest plan, although as, urged by Douglas, the other strode towards it, he more than once reproached himself for coming away and leaving Lady Fordingbridge behind. Nor could any words uttered by his friend persuade him to regard his departure as anything else than pusillanimous.
"She went there to meet me; to see me once again," he repeated, "and I have left her to Heaven knows what peril. These men know me--know us--well enough for what we are. 'Tis not difficult to guess whence comes their knowledge! They may accuse her of being a rebel, too. Oh! Kate, Kate! what will be the end of it all; what the finish of our wrecked and ruined lives?"
"No harm can come to her, I tell you," replied his comrade. "Why, man, heart up! Has not the fox, Fordingbridge, made his peace with George; how shall they arrest his wife or her father as rebels? Tush! 'tis not to be thought on. Come, fling away as much of this disguise as possible. We near the end of the lane, and I can hear the shouts of the watermen to their fares; and still we must go a mile or two higher up and take boat ourselves."
As he spoke he discarded his own woollen cloak, and tossed it over a high fence into the grounds of a country house by which they were now passing, while, slowly enough, for his heart was sore within him, Bertie imitated his actions. The axe (which, like the principal part of his dress, had been hired from a costumer or fashioner--a class of tradesmen more common even in those days than these, since fancy dresses were greatly in demand for the masques,ridottos al fresco, and fancy dress balls which took place so frequently) had been lost in the latter part of the riot, and now he discarded also the peculiar mask he had worn, producing from his pocket the ordinary vizard used at such entertainments, and which the forethought of Douglas had induced him to bring. For the rest, his clothes would attract no attention. They were suitable either to a man whose circumstances did not permit of his wearing velvet, silk, or fine broadcloth, or to one who had assumed the simple disguise of a superior workingman. The headsman's knife, however, he did not discard, but slipped up his sleeve, and Douglas retained his sword.
And now they drew near to the end of the lane, when, to their satisfaction, they perceived an alley running out of it and parallel to the course of the river, as they supposed, by the aid of which they might be enabled to follow its course for some distance without coming out on to the bank where, at this moment, there would be many persons from the garden taking boat to the other side.
"Fortune favours us up to now," exclaimed Sholto to his moody companion, as they turned into this smaller lane; "Heaven grant it may continue to do so!" Then, changing the subject, he said, "Bertie, lad, who do you think set those bloodhounds on us? 'Twas some one who knew of our hiding-hole. As we remarked, we were followed from Wandsworth."
"Who!" said Elphinston, stopping to look in his friend's face and peering at him under the light of the stars, "who, but one? The man whom I have to kill; whom I am ordained to kill sooner or later."
"You will kill him?" the other asked, stopping also.
"As a dog, when next I see him--or, no, not as a dog, for that is a creature faithful and true, and cannot conceive treachery--but as some poisonous, devilish thing, adder or snake, that stings us to the death when least we expect the blow. Why," he asked, pausing, "do you shudder?"
"I know not," replied Douglas; "yet I have done so more than once when his name has been mentioned. I know not why," he repeated, "unless I am fey."
"Fey! fey!" echoed Elphinston. "Let him be fey! He should be! It is predestined; his fate at my hands is near. He cannot avoid it."
As they ceased speaking they continued on their way until, at last, the lane opened on to a dreary waste of fields and marshes which stretched towards the very places which they most desired to avoid, Battersea and Wandsworth; while opposite to them, on the other side of the river, were the equally dreary marshes known as Tothill and Pimlico Fields.
"I' faith," said Douglas, as his eye roamed over all this extent of barrenness, which was more apparent than it would otherwise have been owing to the late rising of the moon, now near its full, "I' faith, we're atwixt the devil and the deep sea--or, so to speak, the river. How are we to cross; or shall we go back and over the bridge at Westminster?"
"Nay," replied Bertie; "as we came down the lane I saw a house to the right of us; doubtless 'tis to that the lane belongs. Now, 'tis certain there must be boats somewhere. Let us down to the shore and see. Hark! there is the clock of Chelsea Church striking. The west wind brings the sound across the marshes. Ha! 'tis eleven of the clock. Come, let us waste no time."
They turned therefore down to the river's bank, walking as quietly as possible so that their feet should make no more noise than necessary on the stones and shingle, for it was now low tide; and then, to their great joy, they saw drawn up by the water's edge a small wherry in which sat a man, and by his side he had a lantern that glimmered brightly in the night.
"Friend," said Elphinston, "we have missed our way after leaving the Spring Gardens; can you put across the river? We will pay you for your trouble."
The fellow looked at them civilly enough, then he said, "Yes, so that you waste no time. I have business here which I may not leave for more than a quarter of an hour. Wilt give me a crown to ferry you across?"
"The price is somewhat high," said Douglas. "Yet, since we would not sleep in these marshes all night, nor retrace our steps to Westminster Bridge, we'll do it."
"In with you, then," replied the man, "yet, first give me the crown; I have been deceived by dissolute maskers ere now." Then, when he had received the money, he said he supposed Ranelagh or the New Chelsea Waterworks[3]would do very well. "Aye," said Douglas, "they will do," whereupon, having taken their seats, the man briskly ferried them across.
Yet, as they traversed the river, the fear sprang into their hearts that they had been tracked from Vauxhall, that even yet they were not safe from pursuit. For scarcely were they half way across the stream when the man's lantern, which he had left on the bank--perhaps as a signal--was violently waved about in the air by some hand, while a couple of torches were also seen flickering near it and voices were heard calling to him.
"Ay! ay!" the man bellowed back; "ay! ay! What! may I not earn a crown while you do your dirty work? In good time. In good time," he roared still louder, in response to further calls from the bank, while he pulled more lustily than before towards the north shore.
"What is it?" asked Elphinston. "Who are they who seem so impatient for your services?"
"A pack of fools," the man replied. "Young sprigs of fashion who have been quarrelling there," nodding towards Ranelagh Gardens, to which they were now close, "quarrelling over their wine and their women, I do guess, and two of them have crossed over to measure the length of their swords. Well, well; if one's left on the grass I'll be there pretty soon to see what pickings there are in his pockets. 'Tis the fools that provide the wise men's feasts," whereon this philosopher pulled his boat to the bank, set the young men ashore, and, a moment later, was quickly pulling away back to the duelling party.
Ranelagh itself was shut up as they stepped ashore, all its lights were out and the hackney coachmen and chairmen gone with their last fares; and of that night's entertainment--which was sure to have been a great one in rivalry to its neighbour and opponent at Vauxhall--nothing was left but the shouting figures of those on the other bank, and, perhaps, a dead man on the grass of the marshes, with a sword-thrust through his lungs and his wide-staring eyes gazing up at the moon. It seemed, therefore, that they must walk to Kensington, since no conveyance was to be found here.
"Not that the distance is much," said Bertie Elphinston, who had before now walked at nights from Wandsworth and Chelsea to the Square, simply to gaze on the house that enshrined the woman he had loved so much; perhaps also to see the place where the man dwelt whom he meant to kill when the opportunity should arise--"but 'tis the hour that grows so late. If they have gone home at once from the gardens without being disturbed by any of the police agents, she must be housed by now--and--and--I cannot see her again."
"At least you can wait. If not to-day, then to-morrow you can meet, surely. All trace of us is lost now, we shall never go back to Wandsworth--we must send the landlady our debt by some sure hand--a change of clothes and hiding place will put us in safety again. And as for messages, why, Archibald will convey them."
"Archibald!" exclaimed the other with a start. "Archibald! Heavens! we had forgotten!--what have we been thinking of? He may be taken too."
"Taken! Archibald taken! Oh, Bertie, why should that be?"
"Why should it be! Rather ask, why should it not be? Do you think that tiger's whelp who has set the law on us will spare him? No, Simeon Larpent means to make a clean sweep of all at once; his wife's old lover, that lover's friend, and the priest who knows so much of his early life and all his secrets, plots and intrigues against first one and then the other, Jacobite and Hanoverian alike. I tell you, Archibald is in as great a danger as we are!" and he strode on determinately as he spoke.
Their way lay now towards Knightsbridge by a fair, broad road through the fields, and between some isolated houses and villas that were dotted about; and as by this time the moon was well up, everything they passed could be seen distinctly. Of people, they met or passed scarcely any; the road that, an hour or so before, had been covered with revellers of all degrees wending their way back from Ranelagh to the suburbs of Chelsea, Kensington, and Knightsbridge, or to what had, even in those days, been already called "The Great City," was now, with midnight at hand, as deserted as a country lane. Yet one sign they did see of the debaucheries that took place in Ranelagh as well as in the Spring Gardens; a sign of the drunkenness and depravities that prevailed terribly in those days among almost all classes. Lying at the side of the road, where, doubtless, they had fallen together as they reeled away from the night's orgie, they perceived two young men and a young woman--masked, and presenting a weird appearance as they lay on their backs, their flushed faces turned up to the moon, yet with the upper part hidden by the black vizard. It was easy to perceive that all had fallen together and been afterwards unable to rise--as they lay side by side they were still arm in arm, and, doubtless, the first who had fallen had dragged the others after him. The two young men seemed from their apparel to be of a respectable class, perhaps clerks or scriveners, their clothes being of good cloth, though not at all belaced; as for their companion, the bacchante by their sides, she might have been anything from shopgirl or boothdancer down to demirep.
"Now," said Douglas, "here is our chance for disguise. These fellows have good enough coats and hats--see, too, they sport the black cockade. Well, 'twill not hurt them to sell us some apparel." Wherewith he proceeded to lift the nearest sot up and relieve him of his coat, waistcoat, and hat. Apparently the fellow thought he was being put to bed by some one, as he muttered indistinctly, "Hang coat over chair--shan't wear it 'gain till Sunday"--but as Douglas slipped a couple of guineas into his breeches pocket he went to sleep peacefully enough once more. As for the other young man, he never stirred at all while Bertie removed his garments, nor when he put into his pocket a similar sum of two guineas, and also his copper-cased watch, which had slipped from out his fob.
"They are somewhat tight and pinching," remarked Douglas as he and his friend donned their new disguise, "even though we are now as lean as rats after our Scotch campaign."
Yet, tight as their new clothes were, they answered, at least, a good purpose. It would have taken a shrewd eye to recognise in these two respectably clad men--in spite of their coats being somewhat dusty from having lain in the road while on the backs of their late masters, the headsman and the Highlander who, a few hours before, had walked round and round the orchestra pavilion at Vauxhall.
After this they went forward briskly towards Kensington-square, attracting no attention from anyone indeed meeting few people, for at this distance from the heart of the town there was scarcely anyone ever stirring after midnight, and it was somewhat past that time now. As they neared Kensington, it is true, they were passed by a troop of the Queen's Guards (as the 2nd Life Guards were then called) returning, probably, from some duty at St. James's Palace, but otherwise they encountered none whom they need consider hostile to them.
In the square there was, when they reached it at last, no sign of life. The watchman in his box slumbered peacefully, his dog at his feet, and in the windows of the houses scarcely a light was to be seen. Nor was there any appearance of activity in the house belonging to Fordingbridge, though Bertie thought he should have at least seen some light in the room which he knew, from enquiry of Sholto, to be Kate's.
"'Tis strange," he said, "strange. Surely they must have returned from the masquerade by now. After crossing the water a coach would have brought them here in less than an hour. 'Tis passing strange!"
"They may have got back so early," hazarded Douglas, "that already all are abed. Or they may have gone on to Lady Belrose's, in Hanover-square. A hundred things may have happened. And where, I wonder, is Archie? He surely will be in bed."
"Can he be arrested? It may be so."
"God forbid! Yet this darkness and silence seem to me ominous. What shall we do?"
"Heaven knows. Hist! Who comes here?" and as he spoke, from out of one of the doorways over which was, as may still be seen, a huge scallop-shell, there stepped forth a man. Enveloped in one of the long cloaks, or roquelaures, still worn at the period, and with the tip of a sword's scabbard sticking out beneath it, the man sauntered leisurely away from where they were standing, yet as he went they could hear him humming to himself an air they both knew well. It was that old tune "The Restoration"--which they had heard once before this evening!--to which the Highland army marched after it had crossed the border.
Presently the man turned and came towards them slowly, then as he passed by he looked straight in their faces, and, seeming satisfied by what he saw, he muttered, "A fine spring night, gentlemen. Ay, and so it is. A fine night for the young lambs outside the town and for the hawks within--though the hawks get not always their beaks into the lambs too easily; in fact, I may give myself classical license and say they arenon semper triumphans."
"In very truth," replied Bertie, "some--though 'tis not always the hawks--arenunquam triumphans. That is, if I apprehend your meaning."
"Ay, sir," said the man, dropping his classics and changing his manner instantly. "You apprehend me very well. Sir, I am here with a message for you from a certain Scotch trader, one Mr. Archibald; also from a certain fair lady----"
"Ah!"
"Or rather, let me say, without beating about the bush, I brought to a certain fair lady, to-night, a message from Mr. Archibald, while she, considering it possible that a certain, or two certain brave gentlemen might appear in this square to-night, did beg me to remain in this sad square to deliver the message."
"Sir," said Elphinston, teased by the man's quaint phraseology, yet anxious to know what the message really was that had been sent from Father Sholto to Kate, and on from her to him, "sir, we thank you very much. Will you now please to deliver to us that message?"
"Sir, I will. It is for that I am here." Then without more ado he said hastily, "The worthy trader has been warned from a friend, a countryman of ours, who is connected, or attached, so to speak, to the Scotch Secretary of State's Orifice, that he may very possibly be cast into durance should he remain there," and he jerked his thumb at Lord Fordingbridge's house as he spoke; "whereon, seeing that precaution is the better part of valour, the worthy trader has removed himself from the hospitable roof there," upon which he this time jerked his head instead of his thumb towards the house, "and has sought another shelter which, so to speak as it were, is not in this part of the town, but more removed. But, being a man of foresight and precaution, also hath he gone to warn two gallant gentlemen residing at a sweet and secluded village on the river to be careful to themselves remove----"
"That," said Douglas, "we have already done. Yet his warning must have got there too late."
"And," continued their garrulous and perspicacious friend, "also did he request and desire me to attend here in the square until a certain fair lady should return from the gallimanteries andridottos al frescoto which she had that evening been."
"And did the certain fair lady return?" asked Elphinston, unable to repress a smile at his stilted verbiage.
"Return she did. In gay company! Two sparks with her, dressed in the best, though somewhat dishevelled as though with profane dancings and junketings--one had his coat ripped from lapel to skirt--and an elderly man--I fear me also a wassailer!--with a fierce eye. Then I up and delivered the worthy--hem!--trader's message, when, lo! as flame to torch-wood, there burst forth from all a tremendous clamjamfry such as might have been heard up there," and this time he jerked his head towards where Kensington Palace lay.
"As how?" asked the young men together. "Why should they make a clamjamfry?"
"Hech!" answered their eccentric countryman, "'tis very plain ye ken not women--nor, for that matter, the young sparks of London! This is how it went. One certain fair lady--from whom I bring you a wee bit message--wrung her hands and wept, saying, 'Betrayed, betrayed again! The veellain! the veellain!' whereby I think she meant not you; the other fair lady, who is maybe an hour or so older, stormed and scolded and screeched about unutterable scoundrels, yet bade the other cease weeping and seek her house, to which she was very welcome; while the two young men uttered words more befitting their braw though unholy dishevelled apparel, and spake of him," and here the nodding head was wagged over to Fordingbridge's house again, "as though he were Lucifer incarnate--though that was not the name, so to speak as it were. And for the old man with the fierce eye, hech! mon, his language was unbefitting a Christian."
"And the message the lady scrawled. What is it?"
"'Tis here," the other replied. "You must just excuse the hasty writing--" but ere he could finish his remark Bertie had taken a piece of paper from his hand which he brought out from under his cloak, and, striding to where an oil lamp glimmered over a doorway, read what it contained. The few lines ran as follows: