Mrs. Tarne, having been a real Pemberthy before her unfortunate marriage with the improvident draper of King's Norton, was quite one of the family, and seemed more at home at Finchley than was the new widow, Mrs. Pemberthy, a poor, unlucky lady, a victim to a chronic state of twittering and jingling and twitching, but one who, despite her shivers, had made the late Reuben a good wife, and was a fair housekeeper even now, although superintending housekeeping in jumps, like a palsy-stricken kangaroo.
So Sophie and her bustling mother were of material assistance to Mrs. Pemberthy; and the presence of Sophie in that house of mourning – where the mourning had been speedily got over and business had begun again with commendable celerity – was a considerable source of comfort to young Reuben, when he had leisure after business hours, which was not always the case, to resume those tender relations which had borne to him last autumn such happy fruit of promise.
Though there was not much work to do at the farm in the winter-time, when the nights were long and the days short, yet Reuben Pemberthy was generally busy in one way or another; and on the particular day on which our story opens Reuben was away at High Barnet.
It had been a dull, dark day, followed by a dull, dark night. The farm servants had gone to their homes, save the few that were attached to the premises, such as scullery-maids and dairymaids; and Mrs. Pemberthy, Mrs. Tarne, and her daughter Sophie were waiting early supper for Reuben, and wondering what kept him so long from his home and his sweetheart.
Mrs. Tarne, accustomed, mayhap, to the roar and bustle of King's Norton, found the farm at Finchley a trifle dull and lonely, – not that in a few days after a funeral she could expect any excessive display of life or frivolity, – and, oppressed a bit that evening, was a trifle nervous as to the whereabouts of her future son-in-law, who had faithfully promised to be home a clear hour and a half before the present time, and whose word might be always taken to be as good as his bond. Mrs. Tarne was the most restless of the three women. Good Mrs. Pemberthy, though physically shaken, was not likely to be nervous concerning her son, and, indeed, was at any time only fidgety over her own special complaints – a remarkable trait of character deserving of passing comment here.
Sophie was not of a nervous temperament; indeed, for her eighteen years, was apparently a little too cool and methodical; and she was not flurried that evening over the delay in the arrival home of Reuben Pemberthy. She was not imaginative like her mother, and did not associate delay with the dangers of a dark night, though the nights were full of danger in the good old times of the third George. She went to the door to look out, after her mother had tripped there for the seventh or eighth time, not for appearances' sake, for she was above that, but to keep her mother company, and to suggest that these frequent excursions to the front door would end in a bad cold.
"I can't help fearing that something has happened to Reu," said the mother; "he is always so true to time."
"There are so many things to keep a man late, mother."
"Not to keep Reuben. If he said what hour he'd be back – he 's like his father, my poor brother – he'd do it to the minute, even if there weren't any reason for his hurry."
"Which there is," said Sophie, archly.
"Which there is, Sophie. And why you are so quiet over this I don't know. I am sure when poor Mr. Tarne was out late – and he was often very, very late, and the Lord knows where he'd been, either! – I couldn't keep a limb of me still till he came home again. I was as bad as your aunt indoors there till I was sure he was safe and sound."
"But he always came home safe and sound, mother."
"Nearly always. I mind the time once, though – bless us and save us, what a gust!" she cried, as the wind came swooping down the hill at them, swirling past them into the dark passage and puffing the lights out in the big pantry beyond, where the maids began to scream. "I hope he hasn't been blown off his horse."
"Not very likely that," said Sophie, "and Reuben the best horseman in the county. But come in out of the gale, mother; the sleet cuts like a knife too, and he will not come home any the sooner for your letting the wind into the house. And – why, here he comes after all. Hark!"
There was a rattling of horses' hoofs on the frost-bound road; it was a long way in the distance, but it was the unmistakable signal of a well-mounted traveller approaching – of more than one well-mounted traveller, it became quickly apparent, the clattering was so loud and incessant and manifold.
"Soldiers!" said Sophie. "What can bring them this way?"
"It's the farmers coming the same way as Reuben for protection's sake these winter nights, child."
"Protection?"
"Haven't you heard of the highwaymen about, and how a single traveller is never safe in these parts? Or a double one either – or – "
"Perhaps these are highwaymen."
"Oh, good gracious! Let us get indoors and bar up," cried Mrs. Tarne, wholly forgetful of Reuben Pemberthy's safety after this suggestion. "Yes, it's as likely to be highwaymen as soldiers."
It was more likely. It was pretty conclusive that the odds were in favour of highwaymen when, five minutes afterward, eight mounted men rode up to the Maythorpe farm-house, dismounted with considerable noise and bustle, and commenced at the stout oaken door with the butt-ends of their riding-whips, hammering away incessantly and shouting out much strong language in their vehemence. This, being fortunately bawled forth all at once was incomprehensible to the dwellers within doors, now all scared together and no longer cool and self-possessed.
"Robbers!" said Mrs. Tarne.
"We've never been molested before, at least not for twenty years or more," said Mrs. Pemberthy; "and then I mind – "
"Is it likely to be any of Reuben's friends?" asked Sophie, timidly.
"Oh no; Reuben has no bellowing crowd like that for friends. Ask who is there – somebody."
But nobody would go to the door save Sophie Tarne herself. The maids were huddled in a heap together in a corner of the dairy, and refused to budge an inch, and Mrs. Tarne was shaking more than Mrs. Pemberthy.
Sophie, with the colour gone from her face, went boldly back to the door, where the hammering on the panels continued and would have split anything of a less tough fibre than the English oak of which they were constructed.
"Who is there? What do you want?" she gave out in a shrill falsetto; but no one heard her till the questions were repeated about an octave and a half higher.
"Hold hard, Stango; there's a woman calling to us. Stop your row, will you?"
A sudden cessation of the battering ensued, and some one was heard going rapidly backward over cobblestones amid the laughter of the rest, who had dismounted and were standing outside in the cold, with their hands upon their horses' bridles.
"Who is there?" asked Sophie Tarne again.
"Travellers in need of assistance, and who – " began a polite and even musical voice, which was interrupted by a hoarse voice:
"Open in the king's name, will you?"
"Open in the fiend's name, won't you?"