Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905. Various
p>Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905
A GENTLEMAN OF THE HIGHWAYS
Since early morning nothing but sunshine had entered the hospitable doorway of The Jolly Grig, a tavern not a dozen miles from the outer edge of London town. Across the white, sanded floor golden patches of light had moved with measured tread, and merry motes had danced in the golden beams, but nothing else had stirred. On the deep hearth were piled huge logs, ready to spring into a flashing evanescent life at the whim of some chance guest, for October was drawing in his breath preparatory to blowing it out over the land.
In front of the logs, sunk deep in his chair, dozed old Marmaduke Bass, the landlord of The Jolly Grig, granting himself the joy of serving drams to dream guests, since guests in the flesh would not come to him. Round-bellied as one of his own wine casks, he slept heavily, nor was he disturbed when a slight figure was framed for a second in the doorway. A slender, girlish figure it was, and the shadow of a heavily plumed riding hat danced with the motes in the sunbeams while the young woman stood, warily, peering into the room. Empty she knew it was, for she had been full ten minutes reconnoitering to discover the fact.
How sound did old Marmaduke sleep, was the question she was asking herself. She could see that the large hands folded across his stomach rose and fell with steady rhythmic ease. Then she saw a fly – a huge, buzzing, bluebottle fly – settle for a moment on the round, bald pate of the innkeeper, and still the sleeper did not stir. Surely if a fly could not waken him, she would not.
Hurriedly, stealthily, lightly, she scurried across the floor, her lifted riding skirt displaying quite needlessly the heavy boots she wore. The skirts were held to her side by her elbows, for she had need of both her hands. In one of them she held a long silken scarf, and not until this had been dexterously twisted and tied over old Marmaduke’s eyes did that worthy awake.
“Help! Murder!” he sputtered through the gauntleted fingers that covered his mouth, struggling in vain to free himself from the detaining hands.
“Quiet, quiet now, good Marmaduke,” cried the young woman, in a deep, full, contralto voice. “You know well enough who I am.”
“Ay, sir, now you speak, I do know you,” the innkeeper answered, settling back into his chair once more; “but it’s what mischief you’re up to that I’d like to know.”
“No mischief this time, Marmaduke. On my honor as a gentleman in his majesty’s service, I swear it.” Laughter was bubbling out of the girl’s eyes, but her voice was deeper, gruffer, even than before. “But it happens to be my whim of the moment that you should sit there just as you are for five full minutes. I want you not to touch the scarf that’s about your eyes for that long time. Promise me that, Mr. Tavern-keeper, and promise me, too, not to shout again for help. I want a room for the night. And I’ll have a cup of wine with you. Ah! not so quick, good Marmaduke. At the end of the five minutes, I mean. And yet I’m thirsting, too. You’ll not believe it, but I’ve not tasted wine for a fortnight or more. It matters not which room I take, I suppose?”
“Ay, matter it does, sir,” answered Marmaduke. “In fact, it’s but poor accommodation I can give you. Lord Farquhart has the whole house engaged for the night. He’s stopping here with a party of friends to meet his lady, who’s coming in from the north somewheres. I’ve only the small closet back of the wine room for my own use.”
“Then the small closet back of the wine room will have to serve me,” she answered, “and you’ll have to spend the night in this chair ruminating on this Lord What’s-his-name’s greediness in claiming the whole house. Or, perchance, I’ll go when these young lords arrive, and leave you your room to yourself. Now, remember, your life or mine is forfeit if you raise that silken band ere I return. And I’m watching you every minute; mind that, too.”
She backed away from him, keeping a wary eye on him, but there was, in reality, no need for this. He sat quite still, his hands peacefully crossed on his stomach. Through the small doorway she slipped, her trailing skirts still held high, but her heavy boots now seemed to swagger across the wooden floor.
“And who may this Lord Farquhart be that he should require a whole house and an empty house?” she asked, from the threshold, and even as she spoke she was hurriedly removing the heavily plumed riding hat and replacing it with a jaunty cap fringed with black, curling locks of hair.
“Why, Lord Farquhart is – why, he’s just the new Lord Farquhart that was Mr. Percy Gordon not so long ago, before he came into a title that carried no wealth with it,” the innkeeper’s fat voice answered. “You’ve surely not been deaf to the gossip that’s going about! How my Lord Farquhart’s going to marry his cousin, old Gordon’s daughter, the Lady Barbara Gordon, and with her, old Gordon’s gold. The whole of London’s ringing with it.”
“Ay, perhaps, my good Marmaduke, but I’m not in London much of the time, so London’s stalest gossip is news to me.” The end of this sentence was muffled in the folds of her riding skirt that she was drawing off over her head, and the landlord of The Jolly Grig took occasion to soliloquize:
“Indeed, if it’s not mischief the lad’s bent on, it’s nothing good, I’ll be bound. Whatever he swears, he’s good for naught save mischief. And I’ll swear, too, that it’s less than a fortnight since he was drinking wine here, in this very place. Though, I must say, to his credit, he’s a temperate fellow, and drinks less than any man of his size that comes here.”
“That’s just it! It’s a man of my own size that I’m after.”
Marmaduke’s guest, now a youth in riding coat and breeches, was seated in the deep chair that faced his host. “A man of my own size, and that’s not so far under six feet high, and with a good girth about the chest, and but small paunch under it, and muscles like iron, as you’ve occasion to know; a man of my own size, to drink with me and sup with me and love with me and fight with me, if we happen to love the same girl. Put off your blindman’s kerchief and fetch the wine I spoke for. What’s the best your house affords, my jolly grig? What wine will you offer this Lord Farquhart? What wine have you fit to serve to his lady?”
“I’ faith, I know not my Lord Farquhart’s taste,” answered Marmaduke. “But I’ve a royal port, lately brought over from France. I’ve a Canary Malmsey that his majesty himself’d find hard to despise. And then, why, I’ve a few bottles of Geldino’s sherris that – that I’ll not open save on the rarest occasion. I’ll bring you the port, if you say so, though, to my seeming, port is a heady wine for a lad like you.”
“Well, then, the port let it be,” answered the youth. “I judge my wines by the taste, not by the name.” When the wine was brought, he raised his cup with a swaggering laugh. “To the girls you have loved. To the girls I will love.” He emptied the cup at a single draught. “There are two times when a long throat is a good throat; when you’re wetting it, and when you’re cutting it. I’d have another, but I’m – I’m sleepy, Marmaduke. I’ll – I’ll – I guess I’ll sleep on that one. By your leave, I’ll sleep here until my lord – was it Lord Farquhart – you said was coming?”
The stranger’s booted feet were stretched far in front of him; his relaxed hands lay under the folds of his riding coat, and his head was nodding now this way, now that, in search of a resting place.
“Yes, my Lord Farquhart,” answered Marmaduke. “But, sir, you told me, the last time you were here, that you’d tell me your own name soon, that I’d know your name before so very long.”
“Ah, in that last you are doubtless right. You’ll know it some day, but I’m not so sure that I’ll do the telling, and, God on my side, that day’ll not be near.” The last words drooled out in a sleepy undertone. Then the voice roused once more. “But who comes with Lord Farquhart? He’s surely not taken the whole house for himself, has he? And he waits here, you say, for the Lady Barbara Gordon, his cousin and his sweetheart?”
“She’s his cousin, right enough,” answered the old gossip. “But if she’s his sweetheart, she knows more of that than the rest of the world. They’re going to be married, though, in less than a fortnight, and – and – But you asked who comes with Lord Farquhart? Well, Mr. Clarence Treadway, for one. They’re never twenty-four hours apart, so London says. Then there is Mr. Ashley, an old suitor of the Lady Barbara, to whom her father forced her to give a refusal willy-nilly.