Part 10
In less than five minutes after, Biggs had marshaled his cavalcade and rode forth of the stable-yard of Brookwood Castle; his white cob at the head, a-holding in his left hand the duly signed warrant for the execution of one Thomas Kidde. Following him, strode the hastily summoned Master William Lambe, the butcher, who was to do duty as hangman (sooth to say, hangings were rare in this county, and there was no one appointed by law to the office, it being thus left to the discretion of the Justice).
The Earl, mounted, rode next with a dozen of his servants, and in the midst of these My Lady Peggy, astride of the black once more, but with face to tail, hands tied together, and no hat to her head; Mr. Frewen at her side walking; a motley crowd growing and gathering at every step, about her, of gaping, wondering, jubilant and curious persons of all ages, sexes, and conditions.
Never a whimper out of My Lord, the Earl of Exham’s only daughter. A set rigid look about the drawn lips, and an unearthly pallor shining through all the dark stains Her Ladyship had been a-using of late.
Not a word did she say, save to ask Mr. Frewen to read the Declaration of Absolution or Remission of Sins out of his prayer-book as they went; which he did under his breath, and much jolted by the rough highway, which now the procession had gained; and likewise laying much unction to his soul that, in so short a space of time, his comfortable ministrations had produced so seeming abundant godly results!
When he had finished Her Ladyship said, “Amen,” and thereafter held up her head with that courage which is born of one of two things, conscious innocence or a profound repentance for sins, which, while to others they may appear puerile, to the offender are worthy of the wrath of the Creator and the condemnation of man.
She noted the hawthorn in the hedges, the dew upon the turf; the tall mawkin swaying in the wind in the middle of a newly sown field; and, as her lids raised, the mustering crowds, all with steps bent, and greedy eyes fixed, yonder to the hill-top where the gibbet stood, and where the new rope dangled for her neck.
Yet she made no sign.
Not even when she heard the rabble laying their groats and sixpences, that Kidde would, or wouldn’t “die game.”
XII
_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, save that 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 now not 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. ’Twas a 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 whole party, 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 the boards 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 Honorable Dolly 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 to become 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 uncommon tousled, 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 excuse to 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.”
XIII
_In the hereinunder Her Ladyship doth shoot two varlets at one fire; and appointeth a meeting with Sir Robin at Vauxhall._
The man, who is shrewd, and has, in his time, fetched and carried many gentlemen of the first quality hither and yon, takes this one’s measure and sets off at a tearing pace down to the city, past the Tower, across the Bridge, into Southwark, back over Southwark, up to Westminster; to Pimlico,—past the very Puffled Hen where, at this very moment, Sir Robin McTart, himself, and not his _soidisant_, sits huddled in his upper room over a fire, cheering his small soul with dreams of murder and love. On to Chelsea, and a whirligig ’round again to that region which froths foully over to the Thames bank in Little Boy Yard, and the jutting, rotting, creaking old Dove Pier.
“This be’s a young nobleman,” soliloquized the cabman, “wot’s in love, or else is a-meditatin’ on a-takin’ ’is own life, or a-runnin’ away from the Jews, or from his gamin’ debts, or I’m not James Finney. An’ this here’s the spot for him to be dropped at; the river most ’andy, also deep, and h’if he’s bound to make an end of hisself, no man wot owns a hoss is as worthy of the reward wot’ll be published for the recovery of His Lordship’s corp, as me.” With which pious reflection the chaise is brought to a sharp standstill, causing Percy to start from his melancholy and look out of the pane.
“Where are we?” asks he, not at first, such is the depth of his suffering, recognizing a spot with which, as Sir Robin had been at pains and expense to have discovered for him, he was indeed of late most familiar.
“This be Dove Pier, My Lord,” answered Mr. James Finney, now descending from his box and standing respectfully at the kennel.
“Ha! Yes, to be sure. I’ll get out.”
He does so and pays the fare with such a largess as makes Mr. Finney, through his tanned hide, almost blush to take it.
“Wot’s the odds, though?” remarks he to himself, “three sovereigns is better off in my pocket than actin’ as sinkers to a nobleman’s body.” To Sir Percy he says:
“I thought Your Lordship’d fancy this bit of the river; it’s lonesome and wery pleasant and wery deep. Good-night to Your Lordship, and good luck.”
“Good luck!” echoes Sir Percy, under his breath, as he strides down the length of the rotten pier, his gaze now fixed on the black and swiftly ebbing tide, now raised to meet a sky no whit the brighter than the sobbing waters beneath it. No stars, nor moon; only a sickly thin gleam shot out of the lamp that swings far up Little Boy Yard over the door of the tavern.
Dark, sad, despairing, the whole of it, with but the lap, lap of the Thames’s life beating against the old piles, as it swirls and swings on its hurrying way to fall once again into the sea.
Percy de Bohun is no cowardly sort, even to think of ending his woes in a watery grave; he is merely a brave, sore-stricken young man, whose whole faith and heart have been pinned to one who has forsaken him forever (as he thinks); and, with the instincts of his kind, he is glad to be here, away from mankind or woman either, to get his grip once more on himself, to fight out for the last time, he swears, the wild, jealous covetousness which is tugging at his heartstrings, to quell the tumult in his soul, and then to get back home to his uncle’s house like a Christian; and, God helping him! to lead a decent life and a brave life, for King and country in the great new world across the seas.
All this and more traverses his brain, the “more” being mostly tantalizing visions of Lady Peggy in all the gamut of her humors, slipping in and out of every resolution he makes, every fond farewell he swears he’ll take of her most dear, most faithless memory forever!
His eyes are bent upon the ground. He neither sees nor hears, nor would heed if he did, aught about him.
In truth there is not anything to hear, save the river on its journey.
But there is something to see.
Sir Robin’s two desperadoes, a-lurking yonder up in the close shadow of the timbered tenements, which line the precinct on the side where the oil-lamps shine.
Across the narrow street, where the huddling houses, with their broken chimneys, rag-stuffed windows, flapping strings of bird-cages, old clothes, and forlorn archways, are deeper in gloom even than their opposites, there’s ambushed another.
One who, arrived in town the night before, and set down at Mr. Brummell’s in Peter’s Court, made a change of garments and off again, since the master of the house was out, to a quiet inn in High Holborn; spent there a few hours; then out of doors and wandered as far as the Temple Church; back again to the inn, and, with rising excitement, and an almost frantic and curious impatience, awaited the fall of night; then a hackney coach to Westminster, alighting at Horseferry Road; dismissing the vehicle; thence afoot to the pier; hiring a boat; a pull alone down the river to Dove Pier; tying the skiff to a rusty hook; a quick run bent to ground; up, and across the yard to her present place of concealment.
’Twas indeed Lady Peggy, her heart in her mouth, her breath coming fiercely betwixt her tight-shut lips, the drops standing on her forehead, each hand grasping a pistol ready cocked, and her dark eyes pinned to the two crouching objects not three yards away from her; anon, following the jerks of these worthies’ thumbs as they indicate the tall figure with bent head still pacing the pier back and forth, she knows her lover and his doom are nearing each the other.
Will high Heaven help her?
Her Ladyship can not hear them, if indeed they speak at all, which is unlikely; the language of such gentry at such crises consisting usually of signs. Luckily for her, the glint from the Three Cups, meager though it be, falls athwart the cut-throats, who now move stealthily down the yard toward the pier, timing their pace so that they shall reach t’other side of the rickety float when their victim shall attain the hither. It falls out as they have designed, and now, not ten paces separate Sir Percy de Bohun from his end, when Peggy darts light-footed, having cast aside her shoes, down her side the kennel to the pier, bringing her exactly behind the murderers.
With the slow, precise tread of beings accustomed to such enterprises, not too hurried at the performance of a not unsavory task, they slip over into Sir Percy’s very wake, Peggy at their backs, noting now, with her pretty nose within twelve inches of their cat-like heels, the gleam of a dagger in the hand of each.
Before she had thought, the two scoundrels seized Percy from the rear, the one clapping his hairy hand over the game’s mouth for a gag, the other grasping the young man’s two hands which had been hanging idly clasped at his back. Not a word, a whisper, even a gasp—
But two shots! sounding like one, and striking Sir Robin McTart’s hirelings in their flanks, laying them on the ground, free Sir Percy de Bohun, stunned, bewildered, to yet catch merely a glimpse of a figure running to pier’s end, jumping into a boat; then the flash of quick oars fading into the silence and the blackness of the Thames.
With drawn sword he gave himself a rap on the chest and believed he had been dreaming.
But no, for at his feet lay two prostrate forms, each bleeding a bit, and feigning, as such apt rogues will, to be stone dead.
Percy knelt, struck a tinder and essayed to look at their faces; they were unknown to him, and perceiving now their estate, he formed the conclusion that a couple of footpads had nearly made an end of him, and walked away.
But of his rescue? the manner of it? the mysterious flight of his preserver? the boat ready at the pier’s end? the twin shots just in the nick of time! What of all this?
Bah! Some bargeman with an honest heart a-passing by had seen the foul attempt, and paused to thwart it; some gentleman, maybe, on his way to rout or tryst, thinking to divert himself with a couple of pistols and so save a human life; some third desperado, envious of the chances of these two, making shift to rob them of their prey, since he was left out of their plot.