Following fast upon this question was another flash of light even brighter than the first. To Farquhart the truth seemed to stand out clear and transparent. Ashley was the gentleman of the highways! Ashley was the Black Devil. Farquhart threw back his head and laughed long and loud. If only he had used his wits, he would have denounced the fellow where he stood.
And in this realization of Ashley’s guilt, and in the consciousness that Barbara must love him at least a little if she had been jealous of Sylvia, Lord Farquhart slept profoundly.
XVI
All this merely brings the narrative back to the announcement made by Marmaduke to Lindley and Johan when they entered the courtyard of The Jolly Grig after the fight with the highwaymen.
As may be supposed, it was several nights before Lindley was sufficiently recovered from his wound to again keep tryst with Johan, the player’s boy. When at last he could ride out to the edge of the Ogilvie woods, he found the lad sitting on the ground under an oak, apparently waiting for whatever might happen. He did not speak at all until he was accosted by Lindley, and then he merely recited in a listless manner that Mistress Judith was gone to London with her father.
The boy’s manner was so changed, his tone was so forlorn, that Lindley’s sympathy was awakened. He wondered if the lad really loved Judith so devotedly.
“And that has left you so disconsolate?” he asked.
“Ay, my master!” Indeed the youth’s tone was disconsolate, even as a true lover’s might have been.
“And when went Mistress Judith to London?” asked Lindley. “This afternoon? This morning?”
“But no. She went some four days ago, all in a hurry, as it seemed,” Johan answered.
“Four days ago!” echoed Lindley. “But why did you not send me word?” He was thinking of the days that had been wasted with his lady near him, all unknown to him, in London.
“She – I mean – I thought you would be here each night,” stammered the boy, contritely, and yet his tone was listless. “I’ve but kept the tryst with you.”
Lindley looked at the boy curiously. Preoccupied as he was with his own thoughts, he still recognized the change in his companion.
“What’s the matter, Johan?” he asked. “You were not hurt the other night, were you? Are you still brooding on the fact that you killed your man? Are you ill? Or do you fear that I’ve forgot my debt? What ails you? Can’t you tell me?” The questions hurried on, one after another. “Or is it Mistress Judith’s absence, alone, that hurts you thus? Is she to be long in London?”
“N – no. That is, I do not know,” the boy made answer to the last question. “We, my master and I and all his company, go ourselves early to-morrow to London. Doubtless I shall see Mistress Judith there.”
“Why, then, ’tis only that the scene will shift to London,” cried Lindley. “Cheer up, my lad, we’ll name a tryst in London. Besides, there’s news waiting you in London; news for you and your master concerning your bond to him. You hardly look the part of a lad who’s won to freedom by a pretty bit of swordplay. You should have learned ere now to fit your countenance to the parts you perform.”
“But I’ve performed so few parts, Master Lindley. I am only Johan, the player’s boy, and, by your leave, I’ll go now, and for a tryst – she – for our tryst, say at ten o’clock, in front of Master Timothy Ogilvie’s mansion, where Mistress Judith and her father lodge. I’ll have surely seen Mistress Judith then, and can report to you any change, if change there be.”
The slender lad slipped back into the shadows of the Ogilvie woods, but for full ten minutes he held Lindley’s thoughts away from the lady of his heart’s desire. What could ail the lad to be so changed, so spiritless? Was his love so deep that to be weaned from Judith for even a few short hours could break his spirit thus? Or was it possible that the duel and the fatigues of that midnight encounter had been too much for his strength? Lindley could answer none of these questions, so the lover’s thoughts soon strayed back to Mistress Judith, and the player’s lad was forgot.
But even Mistress Judith held not all of Lindley’s thoughts that night, for Lord Farquhart’s fate was resting heavily on his mind. That Farquhart was, indeed, the gentleman of the highways Lindley knew to be impossible, and yet all the facts seemed to be against the imprisoned lord. Even Lindley’s word had gone against him, for Lindley had been questioned, and had been obliged to admit that he had heard Lord Farquhart singing in his room above the stairs at the very time when Clarence Treadway, when Farquhart himself, swore that he was asleep belowstairs in Treadway’s room. There was no evidence, whatsoever, for Lord Farquhart save his own words. All the evidence was against him.
And the affair that had savored more of a jest than of reality seemed gradually to be settling down to a dull, unpleasant truth. Farquhart could and would tell but the one tale. Ashley would tell but one tale, and he, in truth, had convinced himself of Farquhart’s guilt, absurd as it seemed. The Lady Barbara could only lie on her bed and moan and sob, and cry that she loved Lord Farquhart; that she wished she could unsay her words. She could not deny the truth of what she had told, though nothing could induce her to tell the story over. But all of her stuttering, stammering evasions of the truth seemed only to fix the guilt more clearly upon Lord Farquhart. Even to Lindley, who had been with him on the night in question, it did not seem altogether impossible that Lord Farquhart had had time to ride forth, waylay his cousin and rejoin his friends at the inn ere the lady drove into the courtyard.
Another point that stood out strongly against Lord Farquhart – a point that was weighing heavily in public opinion – was that since the night of Lady Barbara’s arrival in London, since which time Lord Farquhart had been obliged to be in close attendance upon his cousin, there had been no hold ups by this redoubtable highwayman. The men who had attacked Lindley and the player’s lad had been but bungling robbers of the road. That they could have had any connection with the robbery of the Lady Barbara, or with the other dashing plays of the Black Devil, had been definitely disproved.
So all of Farquhart’s friends were weighed down with apprehension of the fate in store for him, whether he was guilty or not. The only hope lay in Lord Grimsby, the old man who had been convinced that the highwayman was in league with the devil, if he was not the devil himself; the old man whose only son had vowed to take to the road if the Black Highwayman met his fate at his father’s hands. But the hopes that were based on the demon-inspired terror, and the paternal love of Lord Grimsby, seemed faint, indeed, to Lindley as he rode toward London that night.
XVII
Lindley was first at the tryst in London, but Johan soon slipped from the shadow of Master Timothy Ogilvie’s gateway.
“I can stop but a moment,” he whispered, nervously. “I must not be seen here. My – my master must not know that I – I am abroad in London.”
“And Mistress Judith?” questioned Lindley. “Have you seen her? Is she still here? Is she well?”
“I have seen Mistress Judith for a moment only,” answered the lad. “She is well enough, but she is worn out with the care of her cousin, Lady Barbara, and she is sadly dispirited, too.”
“’Tis a pity Lady Barbara cannot die,” muttered Lindley, “after the confusion she’s gotten Lord Farquhart into. A sorry mess she’s made of things.”
“The poor girl – ” Johan shuddered. “Mistress Judith says the poor girl is in desperate straits, does naught but cry and sob, and vows she loves Lord Farquhart better than her life.”
“Ay, she may well be in desperate straits,” shrugged Lindley. “And she’ll be in worse ones when she finds she’s played a goodly part in hanging an innocent man!”
“Hanging!” Johan’s exclamation was little more than a shrill, sharp cry.
“Ay, hanging, I said,” answered Lindley. “What other fate