XII
XII
XII
Rehearseth how, in the very nick o’ time,Her Ladyship’s neck is saved fromthe noose by Sir Percy.
Rehearseth how, in the very nick o’ time,Her Ladyship’s neck is saved fromthe noose by Sir Percy.
Rehearseth how, in the very nick o’ time,
Her Ladyship’s neck is saved from
the noose by Sir Percy.
As yet, in the depths of Armsleigh Copse, no news of the supposed highwayman’s capture had penetrated, although the Earl, with commendable foresight in behalf of the entertainment of his young daughter and her companions, had sent a messenger to impart the sight shortly to be had; the messenger, having a sweetheart in the other direction, must needs go apprise her first! So the gay Ladies and their cavaliers sat on fallen logs, strolled hither and yon, knelt to sop their bits of linen in the dewy hollows, laughed, chatted, dabbed their faces, now lacking any coat of crimson, savethat which Nature might have vouchsafed, and made great show of a fine rural simplicity.
“La!” cried the Honorable Dolly. “Water hasn’t touched my face before since know I not when!” pecking at her cheeks with the corner of her pocket-napkin. “But it has a monstrous refreshing sensation!”
“Oh, Doll, ’tis not thus and so you must apply it, as ’twere some French essence worth its weight in guineas; but look!” cried Lady Diana, flopping down and burying her face in a bath of the dew-drops, and laughing as she looks up dripping.
“That’s the way, faith,” coincides Lady Biddy, scrubbing her own round cheeks with her wrung out linen, then both fists into her blue eyes to dry off the winkers.
“’Slife, Ladies!” exclaims one of the gentlemen, “but you almost tempt us to follow your example.”
“Hither, ye gossoon,” answers Lady Biddy, “an’ I’ll be afther makin’ your countenance shine. Hark! Hoofs!”
“Hoofs! Hoofs!” cry all these fair ones, a-darting this way and that, stuffing their napkins into their bodices, as a courteous voice, with a—
“By your leave, Ladies and Sirs!” greets them, and none other than Sir Percy, self and horse spent in his fruitless search for the supposed Sir Robin, emerges from the bridle-path across the common, at the edge of the copse.
“The top of the morning to you, Sir Percy de Bohun,” laughs Lady Biddy.
“Percy!” exclaims Lady Diana, “prithee, what are you doing out of doors at this hour?”
“Seeking May-dew! mayhap,” suggests the Honorable Dolly.
“But nay, Your Ladyships,” returns he. “I am seeking Sir Robin McTart.”
And forthwith Sir Percy proceeds to give them a history of the adventures of the night, omitting no smallest detail of the prowess of Sir Robin. He has just concluded his recital amid a burst of tumultuous “Ohs! ahs! Luds!” and a vast deal of commiserating sympathy, and a monstrous collection of pretty oaths and curses for Tom Kidde, when into the center of this colloquy jumps Lord Brookwood’s messenger, nudging his sweetheart behind a tree, to tell as best he can his errand. To bid all the company at once to see the sight, it nownot lacking more than the quarter to the hour when Mr. Lambe will adjust the noose, and send one of the boldest and most courtly young outlaws of his day a-swinging to his deserts.
This information, it may be imagined, was received with acclaim of all, and by Sir Percy with positive joy; his only regret, as, dismounting and leading his jaded horse, he walked at Lady Diana’s side, being that Sir Robin had so contrived to give them the slip, and not even to have the happiness of witnessing justice done the rogue who had so near deprived him of existence.
“Here’s to drive off the vapors an any one had ’em!” cried the lively Lady Biddy, swinging her hat by its ribands. “And sure’n it’s not believed I’ll be, when I get home to County Cork and tell ’em I saw a highwayman strung up!”
“Faith, Di,” says Sir Percy, “’twas a lucky chance for the whole country when the rascal made off with your father’s famous black!”
“That was it!” answered she. “The time always comes when no man’s muscle on earth can hold Homing Nell; and ’twas a fine fortune, by my life! when Tom Kidde essayed to ride her. ’Twasa wonder he didn’t jump and run for his life, though,” adds she thoughtfully.
“Zounds! there’s a sort of devil-may-care humor in the composition of those fellows that keeps ’em sticking in any saddle they leap into, until the beast’s bestridden that can throw them out of it. They’re so used to taking chances, I doubt if they ever dream of danger until it’s too late!”
“When’ll we see the gibbet?” asks the Honorable Dolly, panting with her quick pace.
“Soon,” answers Lady Di.
“Ochone, an’ I hope we’ll not be afther bein’ too late to see it all!” chimes in Lady Biddy short-breathed too.
“Percy,” says Diana, “up in your saddle and spy, for I’d not have us miss so fine a sight for a hundred pounds!”
“No sooner said than done!” answers Sir Percy de Bohun, from atop of his horse, where he shades his eyes with his hand and gazes off to the hill where the gibbet stands.
“Good God!” cries he, clapping spurs that send spurts of blood into the eyes of one of the gentlemen, and a shower of sand all over the wholeparty, and away with him! Tearing up the turf as he goes; into the midst of the strings of gaping, jostling, hurrying folk; scattering ’em right and left, leaving ’em in his wake dumfounded, picking each other up. Through the high street of Brook-Armsleigh Village, clatter! dash! plunge! with prick and urge, and goad of thigh and lash! and straining, starting eyes fixed on the face he sees outlined against the fair blue morning sky; the brave undaunted face, dark, under its yellow hair, bearing the strange likeness to His Lady—His Lady! nay, this is His Lady’s lord and love, for whom he rides,—and with noose about his neck now, and man-of-cloth and man-of-blood both at hand; this one with book, that one with cap, the sea of open faces seething breathless all around.
“On! on!” whispers Percy bending to the bow, and whispering hoarsely to the long roan, his very soul in tremor, his lips parched, his forehead and lip dripping sweat.
Into the midst of ’em; nearly throwing Lord Brookwood from his seat; off his beast like a thunderbolt, and with a long leap up on theboards beside Lambe, the butcher, and Biggs, the Justice, and Frewen, the Curate.
“By God! Sirs,” cries he, “what’s this ye’re doing? This gentleman’s Sir Robin McTart of Robinswold, Kent!” tearing the hemp from Her Ladyship’s throat, from her wrists; pushing away the three of ’em, and half lifting the supposed Baronet in his lusty arms, he drags, carries, swings Peg down to the ground, and up into his own saddle.
And then the explanations! the astonishments; the monstrous wonder of it. The humility, the subjection, the apologies; the supplications of all these Lords, Gentlemen, Ladies, worthies, worships, vagabonds and multitudes.
Woman-like, as she sits there for a few moments, dazed, so sudden fetched from death to life, she has but the thought that ’tis to him she loves she owes deliverance.
But none of their hospitality or amends will she have, or even listen to; no tarrying at Brookwood Castle; no smallest glance back for all the wheedles and coaxes of Lady Diana, Lady Biddy, the HonorableDolly and the rest. All she asks, and gets, is her scrawl from Mr. Frewen.
Courtly acceptance of Lord Brookwood’s abject attempts at amends; gracious bows, hands, words, laughter at last; and My Lady in a hastily procured post-chaise bids the gibbet at Brook-Armsleigh Village farewell, and starts for London, where she swears she’s due and must not fail of being, for to-morrow, Sunday.
Sir Percy, too, affirms, he must up to town without delay, to have the honor and pleasure of himself rehearsing at Will’s the splendid courage of Sir Robin, and his almost miraculous escape from a horrible and ignominious death.
In truth Percy longed, after the excitements of the past four-and-twenty hours, to be alone; to seek, as was his wont of late, in some unfrequented, obscure part of the town, such as the desolate neighborhood of the Dove Pier, an opportunity to ponder upon Lady Peggy; to guess fruitlessly of her whereabouts; to curse himself, and Sir Robin who had, with a good cause, he generously allowed, so known how to win her from him; to marvel how, at ev’ry turn, this same Baronet appeared tobecome entangled in his own matters; to question if Peggy were indeed now the lawful wedded wife of this gentleman from Kent. In brief, to pester Fate with queries and surmises far too numerous and intricate to set down.
Thus upon reflection, he purposely absented himself, after his first visit to Will’s on reaching London, from either of the chocolate or coffee-houses, which he was accustomed to patronize, knowing full well that the most pressing and absorbing things he should hear would all have Sir Robin McTart for text. He did not even repair to Mr. Brummell’s house to give an account of the rescue of the Beau’s protégé from the hangman, feeling unwilling to recount his own part in the affair and but too certain that long since the whole matter would have traveled to Peter’s Court and into every other precinct of the town. Having, also, learned from Lady Diana that Kennaston had quitted Brookwood Castle in a dense of a melancholy humor, he did not either go to Lark Lane, (not finding Peg’s twin at the house in Charlotte Street), but moped the Sunday through, thankful that his uncle was gone down into the country;listening to the church-bells; thumbing a prayer-book Lady Peggy had given him one Easter-day, now five years since; finally flinging it from him; pacing up and down the hall; side-curls awry, waistcoat unbuttoned; ruffles tumbled; breeches wrinkled; mind distract, and altogether as valiant a young gentleman as ever made a wager or a toast, unsheathed a blade, or mounted a horse, rendered all of a-muddle by not knowing which way to turn to find the whereabouts and wherefores of a certain fair lady; which has been a state of affairs not uncommon to young gentlemen before this one’s day, and like to occur until the species is extinct.
Yet, ’tis quite true, too, that Sir Percy’s case was a bit out of the usual, inasmuch as the mystery of Lady Peggy’s present abiding place remained as deep to-day as ’twas a fortnight ago.
“Well, Grigson,” asked his master, as his man appeared unsummoned, “what is it?”
“Asking Your Honor’s pardon,” replies this one, “but I made bold during Your Honor’s absence from town to go down to Kennaston Castle.”
“Well, well?” cries Sir Percy excitedly, “what news?”
“With submission, Sir,” replies the man, sadly. “None.”
“’Od’s blood! you fool!” exclaimed the master. “Why do you seek me with your ‘none’! Is Her Ladyship still from home?”
Grigson bows.
“And her mother still in York?”
Grigson bows.
“And the Earl still believing his daughter to be in that damned Kent with her godmother?”
Grigson bows for the third time.
“And that cursed Abigail still affirming that her mistress is up in London?”
Grigson bows for the fourth time.
“Asking your pardon, Sir Percy,” he adds, noting with a keen and generous sympathy, which not infrequently exists in the hearts of serving-men for their masters, the deepening pallor of the young gentleman’s countenance, and his most disheveled appearance.
“Asking your pardon, Sir, but whiles I might be doing your wig, which is most uncommontousled, I’d make bold to tell you, Sir, that Mistress Jane Chockey, Lady Peggy’s own woman, Sir, is in an awful way, Sir!”
“My wig may go to the devil, you idiot!” cries Percy. “What’s the blabbing jade’s tantrums to me! Get out of my sight.”
“With submission, Sir Percy, but Chockey does nothing at all but cry out her eyes from morning till night, and went on her knees a-beseechin’ me to find Her Ladyship, which all I could coax out of her by my best endeavors at wheedlin’ the seck, Sir, was that she last saw Her Ladyship standin’—”
“Where! where?” gasps Sir Percy, seizing Mr. Grigson by the arm with a grip of steel.
“Before the door of Lord Kennaston’s lodgin’s, Sir, in Lark Lane—a—”
“Yes? yes? go on!” with glaring, gazing eyes fixed on his man’s ruddy visage.
“A-talkin’, Sir, to some one a-sittin’ inside of a most elegant chair!”
“Did she see the man’s face?” he asks tensely.
“No, Sir Percy; but Her Ladyship bade Chockey go home and not tarry for her, and make such excuseto His Lordship as you have learned before. And, asking your pardon humbly, Sir, Mistress Chockey is of the opinion that her young Lady got into that chair and was carried off, a willin’ wictim, Sir, to the h’altar, and married to the contents of the chair, Sir, afore that wery noon.”
“Damn Chockey and her opinions!” mutters Sir Percy, under his breath, picking up his hat from the table and rushing into the street, nigh to choking with his emotions and his despair.
He turned the corner, almost knocking over a couple of link-boys in his path, tossed them some pennies for their tumble, and into Piccadilly.
“Fare, Sir? fare, Your Honor? fare, Your Lordship?” cry a half-dozen of ’em, and he jumps into a hackney chaise purposeless.
“Where to, My Lord?” asks the man.
“To the devil!” replies the passenger, “or anywhere else, only drive fast and let me down within walk of the river.”