A messenger with an official document was waiting for us at the gallows. The sheriff tore it open. We had all been bearing ourselves boldly enough I dare say, but at sight of that paper our lips parched, our throats choked, and our eyes burned. Some one was to be pardoned or reprieved. But who? What a moment! How the horror of it lives in one’s mind! Leisurely the sheriff read the document through, then deliberately went over it again while nine hearts stood still. Creagh found the hardihood at that moment of intense anxiety to complain of the rope about his neck.
“I wish the gossoon who made this halter was to be hanged in it. ’Slife, the thing doesn’t fit by a mile,” he said jauntily.
“Mr. Anthony Creagh pardoned, Mr. Kenneth Montagu reprieved,” said the sheriff without a trace of feeling in his voice.
For an instant the world swam dizzily before me. I closed my eyes, partly from faintness, partly to hide from the other poor fellows the joy that leaped to them. One by one the brave lads came up and shook hands with Creagh and me in congratulation. Their good-will took me by the throat, and I could only wring their hands in silence.
On our way back to the prison Creagh turned to me with streaming eyes. “Do you know whom I have to thank for this, Kenneth?”
“No. Whom?”
“Antoinette Westerleigh, God bless her dear heart!”
And that set me wondering. It might be that Charles and Aileen alone had won my reprieve for me, but I suspected Volney’s fine hand in the matter. Whether he had stirred himself in my affairs or not, I knew that I too owed my life none the less to the leal heart of a girl.
Chapter XVI
Volney’s Guest
Of all the London beaux not one had apartments more elegant than Sir Robert Volney.3 It was one of the man’s vanities to play the part of a fop, to disguise his restless force and eager brain beneath the vapid punctilios of a man of fashion. There were few suspected that his reckless gayety was but a mask to hide a weary, unsatisfied heart, and that this smiling debonair gentleman with the biting wit was in truth the least happy of men. Long he had played his chosen rôle. Often he doubted whether the game were worth the candle, but he knew that he would play it to the end, and since he had so elected would bear himself so that all men should mark him. If life were not what the boy Robert Volney had conceived it; if failure were inevitable and even the fruit of achievement bitter; if his nature and its enveloping circumstance had proven more strong than his dim, fast-fading, boyish ideals, at least he could cross the stage gracefully and bow himself off with a jest. So much he owed himself and so much he would pay.
Something of all this perhaps was in Sir Robert Volney’s mind as he lay on the couch with dreamy eyes cast back into the yesterdays of life, that dim past which echoed faintly back to him memories of a brave vanished youth. On his lips, no doubt, played the half ironic, half wistful smile which had become habitual to the man.
And while with half-shut eyes his mind drifted lazily back to that golden age forever gone, enter from the inner room, Captain Donald Roy Macdonald, a cocked pistol in his hand, on his head Volney’s hat and wig, on his back Volney’s coat, on his feet Volney’s boots. The baronet eyed the Highlander with mild astonishment, then rose to his feet and offered him a chair.
“Delighted, I’m sure,” he said politely.
“You look it,” drolled Macdonald.
“Off to the wars again, or are you still at your old profession of lifting, my Highland cateran?”
Donald shrugged. “I am a man of many trades. In my day I have been soldier, sailor, reiver, hunter and hunted, doctor and patient, forby a wheen mair. What the gods provide I take.”
“Hm! So I see. Prithee, make yourself at home,” was Volney’s ironical advice.
Macdonald fell into an attitude before the glass and admired himself vastly.
“Fegs, I will that. The small-clothes now— Are they not an admirable fit whatever? And the coat— ’Tis my measure to a nicety. Let me congratulate you on your tailor. Need I say that the periwig is a triumph of the friseur’s art?”
“Your approval flatters me immensely,” murmured Volney, smiling whimsically. “Faith, I never liked my clothes so well as now. You make an admirable setting for them, Captain, but the ruffles are somewhat in disarray. If you will permit me to ring for my valet Watkins he will be at your service. Devil take him, he should have been here an hour ago.”
“He sends by me a thousand excuses for his absence. The fact is that he is unavoidably detained.”
“Pardon me. I begin to understand. You doubtless found it necessary to put a quietus on him. May one be permitted to hope that you didn’t have to pistol him? I should miss him vastly. He is the best valet in London.”
“Your unselfish attachment to him does you infinite credit, Sir Robert. It fair brings the water to my een. But it joys me to reassure you at all events. He is in your bedroom tied hand and foot, biting on a knotted kerchief. I persuaded him to take a rest.”
Volney laughed.
“Your powers of persuasion are great, Captain Macdonald. Once you persuaded me to leave your northern capital. The air, I think you phrased it, was too biting for me. London too has a climate of its own, a throat disease epidemic among northerners is working great havoc here now. One trusts you will not fall a victim, sir. Have you—er—developed any symptoms?”
“’Twould nae doubt grieve you sair. You’ll be gey glad to learn that the crisis is past.”
“Charmed, ’pon honour. And would it be indiscreet to ask whether you are making a long stay in the city?”
“Faith, I wish I knew. Donald Roy wad be blithe to answer no. And that minds me that I will be owing you an apology for intruding in your rooms. Let the facts speak for me. Stravaiging through the streets with the chase hot on my heels, your open window invited me. I stepped in, footed it up-stairs, and found refuge in your sleeping apartments, where I took the liberty of borrowing a change of clothes, mine being over well known at the New Prison. So too I purloined this good sword and the pistol. That Sir Robert Volney was my host I did not know till I chanced on some letters addressed to that name. Believe me, I’m unco sorry to force myself upon you.”
“I felicitate myself on having you as a guest. The vapours had me by the throat to-night. Your presence is a sufficing tonic for a most oppressive attack of the blue devils. This armchair has been recommended as an easy one. Pray occupy it.”
Captain Roy tossed the pistol on a table and sat him down in the chair with much composure. Volney poured him wine and he drank; offered him fruit and he ate. Together, gazing into the glowing coals, they supped their mulled claret in a luxurious silence.
The Highlander was the first to speak.
“It’s a geyan queer warld this. Anjour d’hui roi, demain rien. Yestreen I gaped away the hours in a vile hole waiting for my craig (neck) to be raxed (twisted); the night I drink old claret in the best of company before a cheery fire. The warm glow of it goes to my heart after that dank cell in the prison. By heaven, the memory of that dungeon sends a shiver down my spine.”
“To-morrow, was it not, that you