VI
VI
VI
In the which Sir Percy de Bohun’s own mangoes on his master’s errand to KennastonCastle, crossing Sir RobinMcTart on the road.
In the which Sir Percy de Bohun’s own mangoes on his master’s errand to KennastonCastle, crossing Sir RobinMcTart on the road.
In the which Sir Percy de Bohun’s own man
goes on his master’s errand to Kennaston
Castle, crossing Sir Robin
McTart on the road.
Somewhat later in the day, as the sun peeped in at the narrow windows of Kennaston’s garret in Lark Lane, it shone straight down upon the face of Peg’s twin, and also upon that of Sir Percy de Bohun, just returned, after a tub and a grooming at the hands of his faithful man Grigson, who even now was performing like offices for the young host. The other gentlemen had long since been set upon their legs and fetched off to their homes by their men.
Percy held his chin between his palms, his elbowsresting upon the table where cards and glasses still littered.
“’Sdeath, Kennaston,” cries he, without moving. “I can live this fashion no longer! To be shot like a partridge would be better. Flouted by Peggy, derided by this upstart Sir Robin, who, by my life! is a pretty fellow all said and done, is past endurance! Give me a pistol, Grigson, and I’ll put an end of myself now and here.”
To this passionate declaration, Kennaston merely makes answer by lifting an arm above the tub, waving it in the air, and, as Grigson scrubs him down, wagging his wet head and remarking:
“Don’t be damned ridiculous, Percy, and pray hold your peace, since I am at this moment composing an ode to my mistress’s smile.”
“Your mistress be hanged, Sir! What know you of love to sit in a tub and make verses to her?”
“I know enough of’t,” sighs the host, “to have been in like case with yourself any time this twelve-month! and ’tis a monstrous thing for you to thus impeach me, when ’tis you whom My Lady Diana favors rather than myself.”
“Lady Diana be damned!” cries Percy rising.“She’s a coquette, Sir, and at bottom adores you, as does the fish the bait the while she plays and sidles ’round it, being sure in th’ end she’ll swallow it, hook and all.”
“Very fine, i’ faith, yet while I sigh, you’re the one she smiles upon. Oh, Percy! Had I but a fortune! Could I but make my name in letters! Then perchance I’d stand my chance; but as ’tis,”—Peg’s twin fetches a sigh that sends the water splashing about the wine-stained floor.
“As ’tis, Sir, counsel me, an you love me. Shall I hie me to Kennaston and wait upon your sister?”
“Write her a letter of fire and sword, and blood and famine; stuff it full of oaths, protests, suicides, murders, as is a Christmas pudding of plums! There’s quill, ink and paper to your hand.”
“I’ll do it and send it by Grigson on my fastest horse this day. I should have the answer before Friday?”
“Aye, you should,” allows the host with an evident reservation. “Now, for God’s sake, Sir, stop cackling and let me finish my ode.”
Which he did a-sitting in his bath, while Grigson dressed his wig.
The toilet, and the letter, and the poem, were all three finished at once, and, without more ado, Sir Percy dispatched his man with the missive to Lady Peggy.
“Come not back until you deliver it in person,” quoth the lover; “an you show yourself minus an answer, I’ll ship you to the Colonies by the next packet.”
After seeing him off the two young men repaired to the coffee-house they frequented, and there the first news that greeted them was an account, exaggerated to the last degree, as was the fashion of those times as well as these, of “Lady D—— W——’s adventure with footpads in Lark Lane, where her chair crossed en route to her mantua-maker’s; of how Sir R——n McT——t had rescued Her Ladyship and Her Ladyship’s Abigail from the clutches of these villains at the hazard of his own life; had, single-handed, put the whole gang to flight; and this, although suffering from a severe wound in the right wrist, the which this gallant young scion of a noble name had received inan affair of honor with Sir P——y de B——n only that very night previous.” In point of fact gossip cried, and print set forth, that “the town was ringing with the valor of Sir R——n McT——t, whose fame as a buck and man of fashion was no less than his expertness at the saving of Beauty in distress. For be it known that no other personage than the renowned Beau B——l had set his seal upon Sir R——n’s mould by begging from him the pattern of his cravat and the mode of his knot. That Sir R——n was now a guest at Mr. B——l’s home, and, being up in town for the season, let ladies fair beware and set their most adorable caps, for ’twas well understood so fine a young gentleman was nowhere else to be met with, nor one of such courage and skill at cards, saddle, or the dance.”
The which as he read it gave Sir Percy no great food for congratulation, but the rather caused him to sink into a kind of melancholy from which no effort of his companion could arouse him. Like a dullard he sat, staring at the print or the walls, the livelong day, and far into the night, waiting for Grigson’s return, and beside himself with asilent jealous fury as each new entrance to the coffee-room gave his own particular version of Sir Robin’s vogue.
The real little Sir Robin, meanwhile, on his journey down to Kennaston in search of My Lady Peggy, had got some three hours’ start of the faithful Grigson, and even now, he, for the first time in his life, stood in the long, bare drawing-room of Kennaston Castle, tip-toeing to the mirror, pulling his wig this way and that in instant expectation of beholding the object of his passion, and rewarding her for her devotion to him, so manifested in the person of the gentlemanly “Incognito” of his last night’s experience.
Hark! Yes, her footstep on the stair, the swish of female garments, a halt at the door. Sir Robin minced the length of the room and, reaching the entrance, found himself face to face with Chockey!
“Your mistress, bud, your mistress! Here!” thriftily pressing a shilling into Chock’s palm. “Go tell her I am consumed with impatience, and eaten up with desire for a glimpse of Her Ladyship’s form, and figure, and face. Go! Go!”
But Chockey does not budge.
“What ails the wench? Deaf?” cries Sir Robin, pinching her arm, for which he gets back a smart slap on his cheek.
“Tut! tut! What manners is that, and you handsome enough to kiss,” adds the little Baronet diplomatically. “Come now, off and implore Lady Peggy to hasten.”
“Her Ladyship’s from home,” finally Chockey says.
“What! Not at Kennaston?” Sir Robin’s sharp eye can not help peering regretfully at the shilling Chockey twirls in her fingers.
“In Kent, doubtless, a-visiting her godmother, and a-hoping to see me there! eh, in Kent?”
“I don’t know, Sir,” replies the girl with a hint of tears in her voice.
“Don’t know! What do you mean?” exclaims Sir Robin suspiciously.
“I means, Sir,” fires up Chock, “that My Lady ain’t by way of telling me her matters. His Lordship, her father’s down with his leg; Her Ladyship’s mother is a-visitin’ the sick in York. As they supposes, Sir, Lady Peggy is in Kent,also, a-visitin’ the sick, Her Ladyship’s godmother.”
Chockey curtsies and turns to the door, out of which Sir Robin reluctantly goes, putting spurs to his horse, dining at the Mermaid and then chartering a post-chaise to take him, sans delay, to Kent.
He crossed but one traveler on his way from Kennaston Castle to the village inn; a man of stout and comely build on a steed that took even Sir Robin’s dull eye, so was its blood and lineage marked in its long splendid gait.
This horseman too pulled rein at Kennaston, sprang from his saddle, and, as Bickers hobbled up to take his beast, Mr. Grigson, for ’twas he, jumped up on the steps and caught Chockey’s apron-string just as it was fluttering in the closing door.
“Hey, missus!” cried he, twirling Chock about and chucking her under the chin, which was rewarded by as smart a slap as that which had erstwhile burned Sir Robin’s cheek.
“I must see Lady Peggy Burgoyne on the spot, without ceremony or a-waitin’ ’ere coolin’ my heels.I’ve a letter for Her Ladyship meanin’ life and death to my master, Sir Percy de Bohun.”
“Have you?” says Chock, looking with admiring eyes upon the smart livery of Mr. Grigson, dust and mud-stained though it was.
“Yes, straight from London town, where ’pon my life, there’s no sweeter mug than hers I sees before me now!”
“Lawk!” cries Chock, appeased. “But my mistress is from home.”
“Not here! where is she then? A-visiting in the neighborhood?” Mr. Grigson turns on his heel and chirrups for his mount.
“No,” returns Chockey. “She ain’t.”
“Well, whereabouts is she? For if it’s as far as the Injies, Grigson’s bound to find her and deliver this love-letter!”
“I don’t know where she is, Sir,” whimpers Chock.
“There, there! Don’t be a-cryin’ and a-sobbin’, Duckie, I ain’t gone, yet! Go ask His Lordship the address; bring me a mug of ale, and I’ll give you a kiss.”
“Drat you, Sir,” cries Chockey. “Don’t you betalkin’ like that!” Yet sidles she quite cozily in the encircling arm of the admirable Grigson.
“His Lordship, nor Her Ladyship, nor no one else knows where my mistress is.”
“What! eloped? Scuttled! Flown the nest! When? How? Where?” cries Sir Percy’s man thunder-struck. “She ain’t gone with Sir Percy! Can it be with Sir Robin McTart?”
Chockey shook her head vigorously.
“Look a-here,” says Mr. Grigson, now regarding the girl attentively. “Damme, but you knows where she is. Tell me and I’ll give you two kisses and ten pounds to boot.”
“Oh, Sir!” cries Chock, pushing away both kisses and pounds with one and the same hand. “I does know; leastways I knows my young lady’s up in London, but whereabouts in that pit of sin and willainy, I can’t say, nor who she’s with, nor how long she’s goin’ to stop; only she charged me make His Lordship and Her Lady mother believe she was gone to Kent, back again to see her godmother. There! I’ve been bursting to tell some one, and you’ll swear you’ll keep it secret, won’t you, Sir?”
Grigson obligingly nods and caresses Chock’s arm.
“Thank the Lord it’s out o’ me!” adds she.
“Amen,” ejaculates Sir Percy’s man with fervor, at the same time fixing a contemplative and shrewd eye on his companion.
“Her Ladyship up in town,—where, with whom, you doesn’t know; her father and mother thinks she’s in Kent; and you’re cock-sure she ain’t runned away with Sir Robin McTart?”
“That I am!” cries the girl, warmly. “Little squint-eyed monster!”
“Eh?” exclaims Mr. Grigson, who had beheld the supposed Sir Robin at Kennaston’s rooms the night before last, and clearly recollected that no such description fitted the slim, elegant, handsome young buck who had got a prick in the wrist from his own master’s rapier.
“Monster! I said,” repeats the girl. “Hist, I’ll tell you more,” says she, drawing close, hand over mouth. “You’ve seen the puppy. He was here anon, a-askin’ and a-tearin’ as to where My Lady was!”
Grigson stares.
“Aye, you must have met him on the road not ten rods off the Castle gates, for, as you galloped in, the undersized cockatrice cantered out. Lady Peggy wed with him, indeed!”
Grigson is now (recalling his having crossed a small squint-eyed gentleman as he came) morally certain that Chockey has been well drilled in her part, and that Lady Peggy has indeed run away up to London with Sir Robin McTart. So much for his thoughts; he says:
“I did. Fortunately I beheld the personage what you describes. Your humble servant, missus. I must be off and no time for love-makin’ to-day,” turning quickly on his heel and tossing sixpence to Bickers who holds his bridle at the stone.
“I ain’t ‘missus,’” remarks she plaintively.
“But you will be some day, lass, or my name ain’t James Grigson. Here’s to you and many thanks for putting me on the right track!”
“Tush, Sir! For the love of heaven and of anybody else you thinks a deal of, find my young lady!”
“Trust me,” flings Mr. Grigson from his saddle.“I’ll find her and him as holds her in durance wile!”
Kissing his fingers to Chockey, off puts Sir Percy’s own man to the Mermaid; stables his horse; hires a fresh one; claps spurs, and up to town as fast as four spavined bay legs can carry him, firmly convinced that he has solved the greater portion of the mystery, and that his master’s lady fair is indeed, beyond a doubt, the bride of the gallant Sir Robin, or mayhap his unwilling prisoner.