Part 8

It seemed to her that any day spent by him out of her sight might prove fatal; that Sir Robin’s hirelings might conceive it better to their purpose to put an end to their intended victim before the Sunday. So, aching with an insane but not unnatural impulse to pull rein and confess all; burning with shame to remember ’twas of Lady Diana’s sweetheart she was thinking; mortified beyond belief every time her saddle grazed her breeches; intent lest an unsuspected sword should flash from the hedge-rows, the sheep-cotes, or the shadows of Epstowe Forest, which they traversed on their way; My Lady Peggy, wishing amidst all this that she had never come to town, yet contrived to display a very cheerful mien, to laugh as loud as she dared, keeping her high notes cautiously to herself, as she had in her speech ever since the night, as Sir Robin, she had made her first appearance in Lark Lane—to join in jest, quip, prank, such as a gay cavalcade of jovial gentlemen were then wont to indulge in.

Such are some of the strange vicissitudes incident to being that most amazingly delicious compound, a wilful and withal true-hearted woman.

As Mr. Brummell had planned, they halted for refreshment at the Merry Rabbit at Market Ossory, and left, after a game of bowls on the green, to pursue their way. Percy lingered a bit in the rear: truth to tell, his reflections were none of the gayest, and the presence of the supposed Sir Robin McTart, and the conclusion, which, together with Ken, he had been forced to reach, that Lady Peggy had run off with the Baronet, did not by any means conspire to the lightening of his spirits. As he watched his presumed rival, heard the ringing laugh, the brilliant jest: noted the careless air, and thought of this cavalier as Lady Peggy’s lord, his choler knew no bounds, and it appeared to him that, come what might, he must invent cause of quarrel, and one or the other of ’em be left cold on the field.

“Why,” a thousand times he asked himself, “this mystery regarding her marriage? Why not have wedded Sir Robin from her father’s home, and with her father’s blessing, since,” Sir Percy reluctantly admitted, “no fault could be found with so fine a young gentleman; and his fortune, he knew to be considerable.”

He was aware that Her Ladyship was romantic to a degree, and he could but decide that this predilection had caused her to elope and to preserve the matter in a wrapping of secrecy for a time; no doubt even now from her retirement looking forward to the hour when she should emerge as Lady McTart!

Sir Percy gritted his teeth together and struck his spurs so deep that his horse gave a plunge which brought him up, neck and neck, with the gray of the supposed Baronet, and the black of Mr. Chalmers.

“To the rescue, Sir Percy!” cried this one jocularly. “Your assistance I beg, and the loan of your wits in our argument.”

“With all my heart!” answers Percy, scenting a possible chance to worst his rival, even in a battle of words. “What’s the subject?”

“A truce to ’t!” exclaims the Beau, with an expressive shake of his head at Mr. Chalmers, who, however, seldom notes any obstacle to the pleasure of his present moment.

“No truce at all, Mr. Brummell!” answers he gaily. “’Tis—”

“’Tis nothing whatever, Sir Percy,” interrupts Lord Escombe, putting his hand on Chalmers’s rein, and adding in an undertone: “Gadzooks! man, hold your peace. The matter’s like tow and tinder betwixt Percy and McTart.”

“’Pon my soul, Gentlemen!” now cries Percy, “I insist upon Jack’s being allowed to proceed with his remarks. If he wants my counsels, they’re his. Come, Sir, speak.”

“’Tis but this,” says Mr. Chalmers. “I say to Sir Robin that since the world’s busy with rumors of his secret marriage to Lady Peggy Burgoyne; since as I learn (by my man, who had it at the gate of the very best authority—Gad! Sirs, ’tis a fact, even if we don’t relish it, the gist of our gossip comes from below stairs, up!) that Lady Peggy is from home, her father believing her in Kent at her godmother’s!” Mr. Chalmers smiles, “her mother being in York, believing her safe at Kennaston, I say, My Lords and Gentlemen, it behooves Sir Robin confide the matter to his best friends, and give them chances to congratulate him and the Lady. Have I the right of’t, Percy, yes or no?”

Percy is silent for a moment: it seems to him a desecration of the sweet, modest and womanly girl he has so long adored, thus to hear even her name, much less a discussion of her most private matters, made into mirthful subject on a morning’s ride.

His anger, too, is great that the man whose name is coupled with hers has not already put a stop to such a conversation, even were it at the point of the sword.

Shall he, here and now, so reply to Mr. Chalmers as shall breed an instant retort from Sir Robin, and a challenge on the spot? The wild thought even flashes through his brain that Sir Robin might, by the grace of God! be left dead on the ground, and that some time in the dim future he might win Peggy back to himself.

But, with a tightening rein, he checks himself, as well as his horse, as he answers.

“Mr. Chalmers, the Lady you name is one whom I honor most deeply, and it seems to me if she has seen fit to go into seclusion, or to marry secretly, that, while I may wish to God it had been in open church! I must continue to respect her preferences, until she elects to change them;” with which, breaking the little pause of silence which follows, Sir Percy gallops ahead, joining Mr. Brummell, who has put himself quickly out of the commotion he had foreseen as likely to arrive.

Meantime, it may be correctly imagined that Her Ladyship, with all her sex’s exquisite ingenuity at plaguing itself whenever it possibly can, had seized upon those words of Sir Percy’s most easily twisted into a means of self-torture.

“I wish to God it had been in open church!” instantly stuck itself in her thoughts beside “Consents;” the two forming just that species of flagellation which ladies so situated in mind are wont to inflict upon themselves.

The supposed Sir Robin, from this on, until the arrival of the party at Ivy Dene, became taciturn, even morose, and not a syllable could be got from him in answer to the wildest gibes.

Her eyes intent upon Sir Percy, who now kept to the fore with his host, My Lady Peggy, on the keen lookout for the possible assassin, and to the tune of “consents,” and its running-mate, “I would to God it had been in open church!” put in a very dolorous twenty miles; but, on dismounting at Mr. Brummell’s doorstep, she endeavored to infuse a little joyousness into her looks and speech.

Indeed, ’twas difficult; yet no more so to-day than any other since she had been coerced by circumstances into an acceptance of the Beau’s hospitality. Every mouthful of bread and meat Peggy ate well-nigh choked her, as she remembered ’twas meant for Sir Robin McTart. She felt herself a trickster, a villain of the deepest dye, and yet saw no way out of her usurped character with honor and repute; no way of keeping in it save by the deeper dyeing of her soul in sin, which she promised herself, and heaven, to expiate as soon as Percy should be safe from Sir Robin’s men.

The afternoon was spent as had been planned; the country cook’s dinner was voted a perfect success: Mr. Chalmers, slightly raised by wine, even going so far as to send her down, with his compliments, his favorite ruby heart-pin: when, on the spot, not a gentleman present but whipped out a jewel from ruffle, finger, pocket or fob, and Peggy herself tying ’em up in a pocket-napkin laced with Brussels and perfumed like the civet-cat, sent them down to the astonished lass in the kitchen.

A game of cards was in order after the repast: a tilt at politics: a wager on the question of tea in the Colonies; Lady Peggy and Sir Percy keeping, by the grace of each, well apart in all these encounters; and at twelve o’clock, just as the moon was rising behind a bank of splendid star-fringed clouds, Mr. Brummell and his guests set forth on their homeward road.

The beauty of the night was such as soothes and casts its own mantle of peace over even those unquiet spirits which may be abroad.

It reminded Lady Peggy, as she rode along, of just such another when she and Percy had wandered up and down together in the weedy gardens at Kennaston. Of that identical night Percy also was thinking, and of his wilful Lady’s bright sallies, quick smiles, frowns; yea, even of one little touch of her red lips, light as thistledown, which now he seemed to feel the ghost of, on his forehead.

The cavalcade had left the highway some distance behind; the moon was fast being overtaken by the clouds whence she had, an hour or more ago, emerged; the dews fell thick, and the scent of the hawthorn was sweet in the air as they plunged into Epstowe Forest.

“Ah, Gentlemen,” cried out Mr. Brummell, snapping his whip, “by Gad, Sirs, what a night for Tom Kidde and his merry men! the skies dark, the moon playin’ hide and seek, fifteen watches and purses, and as many rings, pins and seals between us as you left not at Ivy Dene with my cook Elizabeth!”

“Ha! ha! ha! No fears of Tom Kidde, an he knows our caliber, jumping out upon us!” laughs Lord Wootton.

“’Slife! Sir, he’s the sort of highwayman to jump out on the best mettle that strides horse-flesh or carries gold. The young devil’s afraid of nothing that breathes, and has been the terror of travelers now these three or four years gone,” says Vane.

“He’s not above one-and-twenty, smooth-faced as a girl, those say who’ve caught a glimpse of him under his mask; dresses like a macaroni, voiced like a choir-singer, and nimble as an Indian monkey!”

“Frequents he this neighborhood?” queries Lady Peggy, who at mention of the word “highwayman” has tightened her rein, clapped a hand on her holster, and felt her heart thump, as she involuntarily connects it with possible danger to Percy.

“That he does,” said Mr. Chalmers. “His den, or one of ’em’s somewhere in the depths of Epstowe; and no one can tell when or where he’s like to turn up next.”

“When did he turn up last?” says Sir Wyatt, laughing.

“I can tell you,” returns Vane. “’Twas about Candlemas. I was down at home on a visit from town, when the news came, almost frightening my mother out of her wits, and setting the maids a-shivering like so many poppies in a storm. Tom Kidde had pounced on Lord Brookwood not a mile from his own gates, lifted him off his mount in the politest fashion imaginable, rifled His Lordship’s pockets, appropriated his weapons, and ridden off on his victim’s horse, leaving His Lordship tied to a tree at the roadside, where he was found by Biggs, the J.P., the next morning, a-bellowin’ and a-cursin’ like a wild bull.”

A hearty laugh greets Mr. Vane’s description.

“Yes, but that ain’t all of’t, My Lords and Gentlemen,” continues he.

“By no means!” cries Beau Brummell, out of his fit of hilarity. “I recall now, that I rode over from Lauriston Castle, where I was visiting, that very morning, and heard the adventure from Brookwood himself. I fancy he had the laugh, or will have it some day, on Tom, or some of his men, for the stolen mare was none other than His Lordship’s famous ‘Homing Nell.’”

“Is it possible!” exclaims Sir Percy, “the mare that’s been taken off a hundred miles, let loose, and finds her way home again; the mare that’s been sold and ridden fifty miles away, and then, when she felt a hand at her mouth she could master, has taken the bit between her teeth, and the one in the saddle’s only sometimes been able to keep his seat, and let her take him straight back whence she came?”

“The very same ‘Homing Nell.’ Brookwood’s sure of her getting back sooner or later,” says the Beau.

“They’ll never catch Tom, though,” cries Escombe.

“If they do,” remarks Vane, “he’ll hang not two hours after he’s bagged; his death-warrant’s been lying signed in Mr. Biggs’s pocket-book any time this twelvemonth; and there’s still a gibbet standing on the hill above Brook-Armsleigh Village!”

“Zounds! Sirs!” exclaims Mr. Chalmers, “what a life ’t must be, tho’; sleep o’ days, wake o’ nights, prowling under the branches, harkening for game from dusk till dawn, all seasons the same, one’s heart in one’s mouth, till the hoof’s heard, and then a masking dash, a brawl, a thrift quick as the lightning’s flash; a corpse or two, and your purse the heavier by as many guineas as the game’s had under cover—and all to the tune of the owl’s cry, and I doubt not for some sweet Maid Marian’s sake!”

“’Slife! hear the boy!” cries Mr. Brummell. “One would think him sired by a Jack Sheppard rather than by the gentlest Sir that ever lived. For your froward tendencies, Sir, you shall pay a penalty.”

“Yea, yea! a penalty! a penalty!” cry they all.

“In what kind?” returns Jack, waving his hat over his head.

“A song! a song!” they answer.

“Which one?” asks he, nothing loath, for his lungs are lusty and his reputation for singing above the ordinary.

“What you will,” they answer.

“Well, then, what say you to ‘Lady Betty Takes the Air,’ since all can join me in the chorus?”

“Good!”

“Percy,” says Jack, “you’ve a pretty pipe in your throat; give me the key, will you? not too high, you rascal, I’m not vainglorious at my music. So, and, so—there,” as Percy does as he is asked.

When all the May is deck’d about With hawthorn bud and blow; When pinkly shows the heather’s tip, And harebells nod a-row—

Lady Betty takes the air, Sing ah fa, la-la-la! With a rush hat on her hair: Sing ah fa, la-la-la!

When all the brown earth thrills to green, When rivers laugh and sing; When lark and thrush cajole and coax, And all the wood’s a-wing— Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

When Corydon most sad, forlorn, With wrinkled hose, distraught, All flouted by his worshiped Fair, Walks forth as one that’s daft, Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

When, at the turn-stile next the park, The sad swain stops to sigh— “No lady ever lived so dear As she for whom I’d die!” Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

When, as the sun walks up the glade, And as the milkmaid hies Across the paddock with her pails, And as the lark doth rise— Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

Cries Betty, flaunting past, “Oh fie! A gallant all unkempt, Such ungenteel and woful sight Kind fortune me exempt!” Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

When speaking thus, the May-breeze blew Her rush hat o’er the stile, And Corydon caught quick the gaze, And swift his sigh turned smile, Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

Thus, when the May is deck’d about With hawthorn bud and blow, Sweet Betty ties her hat-strings fast, A gallant in the bow! Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

’Twas ever thus, dear maids and men, Whene’er ye walk abroad— ’Tis e’er the little breeze that blows Each lady to her lord! Lady Betty takes the air, etc.

Every one joins in the chorus with a hearty good will; all save Her Ladyship. Peggy dares not lift her woman’s voice, lest Escombe at right, or Wootton at her left, shall hear its most unmannish lilt. She mouths the words, though, and listens, as she has many a time before, to Sir Percy’s tones, and wonders if the sentiment is making him think of the Lady Diana.

The Lady Diana, however, is very far from Sir Percy’s imagination. He has been moodily ruminating on the possibilities of Tom Kidde (the most renowned desperado in all England of that day) suddenly bursting upon the party, and leaving a corpse behind him—that of Sir Robin McTart! He has been picturing to himself the profound pleasure it would give him to assist in fetching Sir Robin to the nearest church for decent burial, and the almost hilarious joy that would be his in attending his rival’s body to the grave! These were, according to the strict code, most murderous thoughts, and yet how pleasant, if how altogether unprofitable they were also.

Mr. Chalmers is in the midst of his last verse, his voice echoing into, and back, from the depths of the great green wood; there is not a wisp of the moon visible by this, and no light, save the halo from her beauty which lines and rims the vast masses of clouds above them.

Peggy is listening to the song; she hears it well: also the crunch of her horse’s hoofs on the narrow path; also, the crackle of the fresh twigs as they snap before the advance; and too, so sharp are her ears, the sleepy cheep of some disturbed bird in its nest, and, what else?

What is this curious stealthy stir, far-off, and creeping nearer in the wood?

And, hark! Peggy puts her hand to her ear to hear a subdued whistle, sweet, tuneful, underbreath, but patent to her sense, and too, to Sir Percy’s.

Before either can move, or, indeed, had as yet gathered the impulse of even self-defense, into the midst of Mr. Chalmers and the rest, with their chorus, dashes a company of riders in masks.

A shot, low-aimed, and merely intended as a slight warning of what may be expected, should occasion demand, strikes the ground at Her Ladyship’s right.

With remorse and reparation at his heart-strings—’tis the kind of man who could be but generous to his worst enemy—Sir Percy’s horse is flung betwixt the supposed Sir Robin and the band.

“Good evening, My Lords and Gentlemen,” says the leader, in a voice like a lute. “I thank you heartily for coming my way! Purses and watches, merry Sirs, jewels, trinkets, snuff-boxes, if of gold, pins, fobs, seals, these are all the toll I demand, and shall be forced to collect, if you show any disposition to deny.”

It might he wisely argued that, while this speech was being made, any gentleman might have either run the highwayman through, or put an ounce of lead into his heart, but the fact of the matter was, each gentleman found himself face to face with another gentleman who held a blunderbuss up to within three inches of his nose.

My Lady’s first thought had been that Sir Robin’s men had not waited for the Sunday night to come, but presently she recognized the truth, and, stung by the fact that Sir Percy had put himself between her and danger, she was the only one of the whole company who stirred in her saddle other than to do the bidding of Tom Kidde.

While the rest were busily engaged in emptying their treasures, she, making feint to do the same, says very low and tauntingly to Sir Percy:

“Had I but one to show fight with me, I’d ne’er give in to these scoundrels.”

“As soon done as said, Sir Robin,” whispers Percy. “No man can say I’m his lesser in courage!” with which he wrests his bridle from the blackguard whose hand’s upon it, whips out his sword with one hand, picks out his pistol with the other, grips his reins in his teeth, and strikes with steel and shot, both at once.

Peg’s his match, imitating him with such a will as sets every gentleman of ’em a-shooting, a-lunging and a-cursing with all the arms and breath he’s got; and sets the robbers for a second to their wits, for they are not used to any sort of encounter, save one that’s terror-stricken and submissive in the opponent.

’Tis a bit of a mêlée quite in the dark; slashing and pounding betwixt the branches: now a man unhorsed, anon up again; shots resounding, powder flashing, until in about ten minutes or less the chief makes a plunge for Sir Percy, crying out,

“So ’twas you said ‘fight,’ was’t! Have a care; no man can defy Tom Kidde and live to tell it!”

“Nay!” shouts Her Ladyship, with spurs all inches into the gray’s sides, making him rear as she puts herself between Percy and the highwayman, “’twas I said ‘fight’!”

Whizz! and a ball intended for Sir Percy strikes the gray dead under her.

Whizz! and her ball strikes Tom Kidde from his mount.

In less time than it takes to tell it, Peg was straight in the highwayman’s saddle; he was picked up by two of his men, bleeding, set before one of ’em, and off: My Lords and Gentlemen find themselves once more alone in the midst of Epstowe Forest, a-crawling about on their hands and knees a-gathering up their spilled guineas and trinkets by flash of tinder-box.

Sir Percy, trying to explain to them who had been the means of their recovering their valuables and of putting the desperadoes to flight, cries out:

“I tell you! we owe’t all to Sir Robin here! ’Slife, Gentlemen, I’d not have ventured to think of resistance had it not been for him. ’Twas he said, close in my ear, ‘fight,’ and by Gad! Sirs, he’s lost more’n any of us; the horse shot under him.”

“The gray’s well lost teaching Tom Kidde he can’t terrify all the men in England,” answers the Beau from his sprawling search after his diamond snuff-box.

“Ho, Sir Robin! Sir Robin! Sir Robin!” Sir Wyatt shouts it out, and the rest of the company take it up with a long, mellow cadence that echoes for a mile.

“Answer man, for, by the faith, if we can’t pledge you here in anything but a lap of May-dew out of a primrose leaf, we’ll drink you such a bumper, an we reach the White Horse, as never was filled before! London’ll toast you at every dinner-table in Mayfair. Odzooks, Sir, were you the fashion yesterday, what will you be to-morrow!” This from Escombe.

“Where is Sir Robin?” asks Percy. “He was beside me not five seconds since, but now, by my tinder, nor yet by the coming dawn, can I descry him,” shading his eyes with his hand and peering about, for of a truth ’tis close to four o’clock, and, notwithstanding the heavy clouds, the east begins to thrill with the touch of day.

“Robin! Sir Robin! Ho, now! Think not to play a trick on us and presently spring from a greenwood tree,” says Wootton.

“Sir Robin,” exclaims Percy loudly, “I pray you answer and leave not your friends to imagine evil.”

“Tut, tut, ‘evil’,” puffs the Beau, rising from his knees. “Evil’ll never happen to him. Zounds! but my legs ache! He’s laughing in his sleeve now, hard by; Robin’s not one to court notice or praise—as modest a youth as I ever beheld.”

“Worthy of Lady Peggy Burgoyne even, I suppose?” says Mr. Chalmers mischievously, as he adjusts his recovered fob. “I could embrace him for the rendering of me back my watch, but I think him a fool to eschew good company and make home alone to town.”

“Jack,” says Percy, low, “I like not his quitting of us. ’Twas too sudden. I believe I’ll go a-hunting him,” pulling his rein as the cavalcade once more prepared to start.

“Where?” asks Jack. “Bah! be not such a ninny; belike he’s off to his Lady, to win kisses off her lips by the rehearsal of his prowess. An a man chooses to flee me, I let him: do you the same, Percy; ’tis a good advice, I promise you!”

“But suppose those devils attack him again when alone?” says this one, not all reassured, as he and Jack linger a bit in the rear of their companions.

“Go to the devil!” remarks Mr. Chalmers, blithely. “I’m for breakfast at the White Horse, and for leavin’ the hero of the hour to eat his where he sees fit. He’s safe enough.”

“I’ve a misgiving,” answers de Bohun, “and he risked his life for mine to-night. I’ll strike off here to the west and join you when I find him.”

“Good luck to you for a fool!” laughs Jack, putting spurs and going on to tell this news to the others.