“I – I was dreaming that I was caught in a trap, a – a mousetrap, I think it was. Your – your voice is most soothing, Marmaduke. Wake me in time for me to retire to my own room before my Lord Farquhart arrives with his company.” The weary head had finally lopped to rest. The sleepy voice had trailed off into silence.
“Ay, ay, I’ll wake you, never fear!” old Marmaduke answered the lad, standing over him. Then he murmured: “He’s a pretty boy! I’ll warrant I’d be earning the thanks of some worthy family by ferreting out his name and telling tales on him. But I’ll not. Not just yet, anyway.”
The lad’s short, black curls fell over the upper part of his face, and as he sat, slouched deep in the big chair, he seemed quite lost in its shadows.
II
It was not ten minutes thereafter that the kindly innkeeper was thrown into such a flutter by the arrival of his expected guests, that he quite forgot to rouse the stranger sleeping in the deep chair by the hearth.
“We’ve the house to ourselves, as I commanded, good Marmaduke?” demanded Lord Farquhart.
“Quite to ourselves, your honor,” answered Marmaduke, “save, oh, bless my heart! save for this idler asleep by the chimney. I meant to send him about his business ere you came!”
“Send him now, then,” said Farquhart, indifferently, “and, gentlemen, I can welcome you as to my own house.”
“Why waken the lad if he sleeps?” demanded young Lindley, who had seated himself astride of the arm of the chair that the innkeeper had deserted. The young man’s Irish blue eyes rested carelessly on the sleeping lad. “Why throw him out, Percy? Is he only a chance patron or a friend, Marmaduke?”
“A friend,” answered that worthy – “leastwise a friend of a year’s standing, and he’s slept like that since his last draught of wine.”
“Why not let him sleep, Percy?” It was still young Lindley who was interceding in the boy’s behalf. “Only two things can induce sleep like that – one’s good wine, the other’s a good conscience. Why interfere with either? Sure, we’re lacking in both ourselves.”
“Well, let him sleep for aught of me,” answered Farquhart, nonchalantly. “In truth, it’s so long since I’ve even seen sleep like that, that it rests me somewhat to be in the room with it.”
“If Marmaduke’ll vouch for the wine the boy’s had, I’ll vouch for the conscience,” asserted Lindley, again taking sides with the unknown. He laid a careless hand on the boy’s head. “He’s a likely lad, and it seems to me that neither wine alone nor conscience alone could induce sleep so deep. What’s his name?”
“That’s what I wish I could tell you, gentlemen,” Marmaduke answered, with some hesitation. “As I said, I’ve known him for a year or more, and he’s always promising me that next time, or some time, he’ll tell me who he is. But he’s only a lad, and I was thinking just before your honors came that perhaps I was doing wrong to let him drink away his fortunes here – that I ought to be telling his family, if I could but find out where and what it is.”
“But does he drink so heavily, then?” demanded Ashley, crossing over and looking down upon the lad. “A boy of his age and girth could not carry much, I should say.”
“No, not much, sir,” Marmaduke answered, hastily; “leastwise not here, but – ”
“Oh, don’t bother your conscience with a thing like that, my good man,” cried Treadway. “Bring us another round of wine, and charge me up a cup or two for the lad when he wakes. Then his bibulous fortune will not be all on your head. And” – he turned to Farquhart – “if the roads to Camberwell be as good – God save the mark! – as the roads from London here, Mistress Babs will not be calling for our escort until midnight. Gad! I never traversed such mire. I thought my horse was down a dozen times.”
“And, of course, the Lady Barbara’s coach must move more heavily than we did,” agreed Lindley. “As I remember them, the old Gordon hackneys move as deliberately as old Gordon himself – that is, if horse flesh can move as slowly as human flesh. Has your lady a large escort from Camberwell, Percy?”
“Only her servants, I believe.” Percy Farquhart’s tone was quite lacking in a lover’s interest. “Her father has no faith in the Black Devil who has haunted our London roads for the past six months, and he declared that he’d not insult the peace of his majesty’s kingdom by sending an armed escort with his daughter when she entered his majesty’s town. That was why he asked me to meet her here.”
“Oh, oh!” rallied his companions, and one of them added: “So, it’s at the father’s request that you meet the Lady Barbara. Ah, Percy, Percy, can’t you pretend affection, even if you have it not, for Lord Gordon’s daughter and her golden charms?”
“I’d pretend it to her if she’d let me,” answered Farquhart, still indifferently. “And I’d pretend it about her if it were worth while. But I’m afraid that my friends know me too well to suffer such pretense. I’m with friends to-night” – he glanced only at Treadway and at Lindley – “so why taint tone or manner with lies? The Lady Barbara Gordon knows as well as I know that it’s her lands that are to be wed to mine, that her gold must gild my title, that her heirs and my heirs must be the same. Old Gordon holds us both with a grip like iron, and we are both puppets in his hands. She knows it, and I know it. She is as resentful of pretended affection as she would be of love – from me. But come, let us forget the Lady Barbara while we may – after we have drunk a measure of wine to her safe conduct from Camberwell to The Jolly Grig. From here to London her safety will depend on our swords. To the Lady Barbara, I say, to her daffodil hair, to her violet eyes, to her poppy lips, to her lily cheeks! Is that lover-like enough? Eh, Clarence? And I’ll add, to the icicle that incloses her heart. May her peace be unbroken on the road from Camberwell to London.”
He raised his wine cup high, glancing frankly at Lindley and at Treadway, but passing hurriedly over Ashley’s scornful lips and hostile eyes. For Dame Rumor had been right once in a way, and The Jolly Grig tavern was not the only stronghold that she had invaded with the assertion that young Ashley had found favor in the Lady Barbara’s eyes; that he had possessed her heart. And an onlooker might have seen that Ashley’s nervous fingers had played an accompaniment upon his sword-hilt while the lady’s name had been on the lips of her affianced lover and his friends. But not only had the Lady Barbara commanded Farquhart to have Ashley much in his company, but she had also commanded Ashley to accept whatever courtesies were offered him by Lord Farquhart. Each was obeying strictly the lady’s commands, one for the sake of policy, the other for the sake of love.
A short silence fell after the toast had been drunk. The men had ridden hard and were tired.
“I’m sorry we did not meet the Black Devil, or one of his imps, ourselves,” observed Treadway, yawning and stretching his arms above his head. “We’re not in fashion if we can’t report a hold up by this representative of his Satanic majesty.”
“But he’d hardly attack a party as large as ours,” cried Lindley. “Eight against one would be too unequal a fight, even if the one were the devil himself.”
“Have a care, my good Cecil,” laughed Farquhart. “You mention the enemy’s name somewhat freely, seeing that we are to escort a lady through his haunts.”
“Ay, but my fingers are crossed, you see, and that closes the devil’s ears. If it really is the devil, we’ll have nothing to fear from him.”
“The last report is that he held up the bishop’s carriage, mounted escort and all,” interrupted Treadway.
“No, no,” corrected Lindley; “the fellow merely stopped the bishop’s carriage, escort and all. Then he begged for alms, and the episcopal blessing! Then he drew the ring from the hand that bestowed the alms and blessing, and slipped away before the ponderous escort perceived that the bishop had fainted with terror.”
“They say he returned the ring the