SCENE XXI

In the white moonlight Sir Jasper Standish paced up and down the cobble-stoned yard with as monotonous a restlessness as if he had been hired this night to act the living sign at the Bear Inn, Devizes.

Each time he passed the low open window of the inn parlour, in which sat Mr. Stafford by the dim yellow light of two long-tongued tallow candles, the baronet would pause a moment to exchange from without a few dismal words with his friend. The latter, puffing at a long clay pipe, endeavoured in the intervals to while away the heavy minutes in the perusal of some tome out of mine host's library—a unique collection and celebrated on the Bath Road.

"Tom Stafford," said Sir Jasper, for the twentieth time, "how goes the hour?"

"Damned slowly, friend," said Stafford, consulting with a yawn the most exact of three watches at his fob. "To be precise, 'tis two minutes and one third since I told you that it wanted a quarter of midnight."

Sir Jasper fell once more to his ursine perambulation, and Stafford, yawning again, flicked over a page. He had not reached the bottom of it, however, before Sir Jasper's form returned between him and the moonlight.

"What," said the injured husband, "what if they should have taken another road?"

"Then," cried Stafford, closing his book with a snap between both his palms, tossing it on to the table and stretching himself desperately, "I shall only have to fight you myself for this most insufferably dull evening that you have made me spend, when I was due at more than one rendezvous, and had promised pretty Bellairs the first minuet."

"It shall be pistols," said Sir Jasper, following his own thoughts with a sort of gloomy lust, "pistols, Tom. For either he or I shall breathe our last to-night."

"Pistols with all my heart," said Stafford, stopping his pipe with his little finger. "Only do, like a good fellow, make up your mind—just for the sake of variety. I think the last time we considered the matter, we had decided for this"—describing a neat thrust at Sir Jasper's waistcoat through the window with the long stem of his churchwarden. "There's more blood about it, Jasper," he suggested critically.

"True," murmured the other, again all indecision. "But pistols at five paces——."

"Well—yes, there's a charm about five paces, I admit," returned the second with some weariness, dropping back again into his chair. "And we can reload, you know."

"If I fall," said Sir Jasper, with the emotion which generally overtakes a man who contemplates a tragic contingency to himself, "be gentle with her. She has sinned, but she was very dear to me."

"She'll make a deuced elegant widow," said Stafford, musingly, after a little pause, during which he had conjured up Lady Standish's especial points with the judgment of a true connoisseur.

"You must conduct her back to her home," gulped Sir Jasper, a minute later, slowly thrusting in his head again. "Alack, would that I had never fetched her thence.... Had you but seen her, when I wooed and won her, Tom! A country flower, all innocence, a wild rose.... And now, deceitful, double-faced!"

"'Tis the way of the wild rose," said Stafford, philosophically. "Let you but transplant it from the native hedgerow, and before next season it grows double."

Here the speaker, who was always ready with a generous appreciation of his own conceits, threw his head back and laughed consumedly, while Sir Jasper uttered some sounds between a growl and a groan.

The volatile second in waiting wiped his eyes.

"Go to, man," cried he, turning with sudden irascibility upon his friend, "for pity's sake take that lugubrious countenance of thine out of my sight. What the devil I ever saw in thee, Jasper, to make a friend of, passes my comprehension: for, of all things, I love a fellow with a spark of wit. And thou, lad, lackest the saving grace of humour so wofully, that, in truth, I fear—well—thou art in a parlous state: I fear damnation waits thee, for 'tis incurable. What! in God's name cannot a man lose a throw in the game of happiness and yet laugh? Cannot a husbandman detect a poacher on his land and yet laugh as he sets the gin? Why," cried Mr. Stafford, warming to his thesis, and clambering lightly out of the window to seat himself on the outer sill, "strike me ugly! shall not a gentleman be ever ready to meet his fate with a smile? I vow I've never yet seen Death's head grin at me, but I've given him the grin back—split me!"

"Hark—hark!" cried Sir Jasper, pricking his strained ear, "d'ye hear?"

"Pooh!" said Mr. Stafford, "only the wind in the tree."

"Nay," cried Sir Jasper; "hush man, listen!"

An unmistakable rumbling grew upon the still night air—a confused medley of sounds which gradually unravelled themselves upon their listening ears. It was the rhythmical striking of many hoofs, the roll of wheels, the crack of a merciless whip.

"Faith and faith," cried Stafford, pleasantly exhilarated, "I believe you're right, Jasper; here they come!"

The moonlight swam blood-red before Sir Jasper's flaming eye. "Pistols or swords?" questioned he again of himself, and grasped his hilt as the nearest relief, pending the decisive moment.

Out slouched a couple of sleepy ostlers, as Master Lawrence, mine host, rang the stable bell.

Betty, the maid, threw a couple of logs on the fire, while the dame in the bar, waking from her snooze, demanded the kettle, selected some lemons, and ordered candlesticks and dips with reckless prodigality.

*****

Mistress Kitty, peering out of the carriage window, her shoulder still turned upon the unhappy and unforgiven swain, hailed the twinkling lights of the Bear Inn with lively eyes.

While the chaise described an irreproachable curve round the yard, her quick glance had embraced every element of the scene. Sir Jasper's bulky figure, with folded arms, was leaning against the post of the inn door, awaiting her approach—retribution personified—capriciously illumined by the orange rays of the landlord's lantern. Out in the moonlight, shining in his pearl gray satin and powdered head, all silver from crest to shoe-buckle, like the prince of fairy lore, sat Stafford on his window-ledge, as gallant a picture to a woman's eye, the widow had time to think, as one could wish to see on such a night.

"Oh," she thought, "how we are going to enjoy ourselves at last!"

And being too true an artist to consider her mere personal convenience upon a question of effect, she resolved to defer the crisis until the ripe moment, no matter at what cost. Accordingly, even as O'Hara cried out, in tones of surprise and disgust: "Thunder and turf! my darling, if there isn't now that blethering ox, Sir Jasper!" Mistress Kitty instantly covered her face with her lace and swooned away on the Irishman's breast.

Sir Jasper charged the coach door. "Blethering ox!" he bellowed. "I'll teach you, sir, what I am! I'll teach that woman—I'll, I'll——"

Here Stafford sprang lightly to the rescue.

"For Heaven's sake," said he, "think of our names as gentlemen; let it be swords or pistols, Jasper, or swords and pistols, if you like, but not fistycuffs and collaring. Be quiet, Jasper! And you, sir," said he to O'Hara, as sternly as he could for the tripping of his laughter, "having done your best to add that to a gentleman's head which shall make his hats sit awry for the remainder of his days, do you think it generous to give his condition so precise a name?"

"O hush," cried O'Hara, in too deep distress to pay attention either to abuse or banter, "give me room, gentlemen, for God's sake. Don't you see the lady has fainted?"

With infinite precaution and tenderness he emerged from the chay with his burden, elbowing from his path on one side the curious and officious landlord, on the other the struggling husband.

"Oh, what have I done at all!" cried the distracted lover, as the inertness of the weight in his arms began to fill him with apprehension for his dear. "Sure, alanna, there's nothing to be afraid of! Sure, am I not here? Och, me darling, if——"

But here Sir Jasper escaped from his friend's control. "I'll not stand it," cried he. "'Tis more than flesh and blood can endure. Give her up to me, sir. How dare you hold her?" He fell upon O'Hara in the rear and seized him, throttling, round the neck.

"I'll dare you in a minute, ye mad divil!" yelled O'Hara, in a fury no whit less violent than that of his assailant. Thus cried he, then choked.

In the scuffle they had reached the parlour.

"Oh, Jasper, Jasper, in the name of decency!" protested Stafford, vainly endeavouring to pluck the baronet from the Irishman's back. "And you, Denis lad, I entreat of you, cease to provoke him. Zooks, my boy, remember he has some prior claim—what shall I say? some little vested interest——"

"I'll stuff him with his own red hair!" asseverated Sir Jasper, foaming at the mouth as, under a savage push from O'Hara's elbow he fell back, staggering, into Stafford's power.

"Prior claims—vested interest is it! Some of you will have to swallow those words before I'll be got to swallow anything here," swore Denis O'Hara, almost gaily, in the exaltation of his Celtic rage. "Sure, 'tis mad, I know ye are, lepping mad, Sir Jasper, but ought you not to be ashamed of yourself before the lady? She's quivering with the fright.... Lie here, my angel," said he, vibrating from the loudest note of defiance to the tenderest cooing. "Lie here; there's not a ha'porth to frighten ye, were there fifty such twopenny old crazy weathercocks crowing at you!"

So saying, he deposited his burthen tenderly in the leather-winged arm-chair by the fire-place, and turned with a buoyant step towards Sir Jasper.

"Come out," said he, "come out, sir. Sure, leave him alone, Tom, 'tis the only way to quiet him at all. Sure, after our little game the other night, wasn't he that dove-like, poor fellow, a child might have milked him?"

The quivering form in the chair here emitted a scale of hysterical little notes that seemed wrung from her by the most irrepressible emotion. And:

"Oh, oh," exclaimed Mr. Stafford, unable, in the midst of his laughter, to retain any further grip upon his friend.

"My darling," once more began the solicitous O'Hara, turning his head round towards the arm-chair, but:

"Judas!" hissed Sir Jasper, and furiously interposed his bulk between the Irishman and his intention.

"Faith," cried Stafford, "can't you cover that head of yours, somehow, O'Hara? I vow the very sight of it is still the red rag to the bull.... The bull, aha!"

"Ha! ha! ha!" broke in, this time uncontrolled, the merriment from the chair.

The three men were struck into silence and immobility.

Then, on tip toe, Mr. Stafford approached and peeped round the wing of the arm-chair. He looked, and seemed blasted with astonishment; looked again and made the rafters ring with his sonorous laugh, till the apprehensive landlord in the passage and the trembling dame in the bar were comforted and reassured by the genial sound.

The high feminine trill of Mistress Kitty's musical mirth rang in sweetly with his.

"Oh, Kitty Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs!" gasped Mr. Stafford, shook his finger at her, felt blindly for a support, and rolled up against Sir Jasper.

The baronet straightway fell into an opportunely adjacent chair and there remained—his legs extended with compass stiffness, his eyes starting with truly bovine bewilderment—staring at the rosy visage, the plump little figure, that now emerged from the inglenook.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" faintly murmured Stafford. And with a fresh breath he was off again. "Aha ha ha! for an ox, my Jasper, thou hast started on a lovely wild goose chase—as friend O'Hara might say." While:

"Mercy on us!" rippled the lady. "I protest, 'tis the drollest scene. Oh, Sir Jasper, Sir Jasper, see what jealousy may bring a man to!"

"Musha, it's neither head nor tail I can make of the game," said O'Hara, "but sure it's like an angel choir to hear you laugh again, me darling."

The guileless gentleman approached his mistress as he spoke, and prepared to encircle her waist. But with a sudden sharpness she whisked herself from his touch.

"Pray, sir," she said, "remember how we stand to each other! If I laugh 'tis with relief to know myself safe."

"Safe?" he echoed with sudden awful misgiving.

"Aye," said she, and spoke more tartly for the remorseful smiting of her own heart, as she marked the change in his face. "You would seem to forget, sir, that you have carried me off by violence—treacherously seized me with your hired ruffians." Her voice grew ever shriller, as certain rumours, which her expectant ears had already caught approaching, now grew quite unmistakable without, and hasty steps resounded in the passage. "Oh, Mr. O'Hara, you have cruelly used me!" cried the lady. "Oh, Sir Jasper, oh, Mr. Stafford, from what a fate has your most unexpected presence here to-night thus opportunely saved me!"

At this point she looked up and gave a scream of most intense astonishment: for there, in the doorway, stood my Lord Verney; and, over his shoulder, peered the white face of Captain Spicer, all puckered up with curiosity.