We went our way in much better heart. We were fortified indeed by such a generous confidence. And so susceptible is the mind to the opinion of others, that on the strength of the landlord's disposition, we began to hold up our heads again in the world, and to take a rose-coloured view of our affairs. All was not lost yet by a good deal. With our admirable equipage we had resources of a sort; and we were still in the complete possession of our freedom. It remained for us to utilize it to the full.

It was while we were engaged with this train of speculation that a concrete and definite idea came into my head. Why not make for the port of Bristol and flee the country? Why not indeed?

"A brave plan, truly," Cynthia says, "but we cannot do it without money."

"We will sell our horses and chariot to some honest vintner of Bristol city," says I, "and the proceeds should easily suffice to take us to the Americas."

Although Mrs. Cynthia shook her head and deprecated it as a wild-goose scheme, she was compelled to admit that it was the best that offered. Her protests were not unmingled with regret, for she could not be got to consider it so light a thing to renounce her country. For my part I must confess that I was troubled with no such scruples. Like all persons who serve it scurvily, and who are least of an ornament to it, I held myself to be as ill-used by it as ever it had been by me. I felt that I could renounce it for ever without a pang.

After some little meditation I became immeasurably taken with this scheme. There was no reason why with one bold stroke we should not renounce our liabilities and put away our dangers. Every hour we spent in England now was at our peril. But let us reach the port of Bristol and turn our chaise and horses into ready money sufficient to defray the expenses of the voyage, and once again should we be able to breathe the air of freedom. Seeing me more than ever possessed with the notion, Mrs. Cynthia, like a dutiful wife, began presently to yield to it. She owned at least that a life over seas could not be much more precarious than the one we were at present enjoying, and it might conceivably be less so.

"But I could wish," says she, "that we had more to found our fortunes on. How can we support ourselves when we get to – to what-d'ye-call-'em?"

"You will spin, my dear," says I, "and I shall delve, in some lone wood cabin on the prairie."

"But we shall perish of the dulness in a twelve-month."

"Oh no, my dear," says I, "there will be wild beasts and Red Indians to provide us with more than enough of relaxation."

By slow degrees I brought her so entirely to my way of thinking, that she became as keen to make the port of Bristol as ever I could be. Indeed, so much were we put in mind of this that we began to make inquiries of our whereabouts, that we might set our faces thither at the earliest moment. We lay that night at an honest, comfortable inn, and learned to our surprise that our wanderings had brought us to within a day's journey of Exeter. We had certainly not supposed that we had come so far from town, nor that we had penetrated so far into the country of the enemy. For, as Cynthia excitedly exclaimed, in the near neighbourhood of Exeter was her father's seat. This unexpected circumstance wrought upon her in a singular way.

"I would dearly love to look on the old place for the last time," she said.

Although her father's house had in itself so slight a hold on her affection that she had renounced its advantages for ever, despite all the desperate consequences of such an act, its proximity had still the power to kindle a sentiment in her heart. Besides, as a little later she pointed out, there was a certain expedience in going thither. There were some small pieces of her personal property that she had left behind in the sudden recklessness of her flight, which could be easily retrieved and would add materially to our resources. This to my mind was something like an argument. I had no longer that fine disregard for ways and means with which I had set out on our pilgrimage. Money was a base consideration enough, but it seemed a mighty difficult matter to do without it. Cynthia's few jewels and trinkets were likely to serve us too well, even in the Americas, for us to afford to disregard them.

Here then was an end to all my objects. We would diverge a little out of the straight road to Bristol, and pay a visit to Cynthia's home in the absence of her papa. We counted for our safety on the fact that we must be some hours ahead of that irate old gentleman. All the same, we were taking a considerable risk. Much depended on how soon our papa had been able to replace the chaise and horses we had stolen from him. But I do not think we hesitated an instant on this account, having once committed ourselves to this daring course. Besides, there was a certain savour of humour in paying a call on his Grace in these circumstances, which did a great deal to reconcile us to the inconvenience.

CHAPTER XXI
WE REAP THE FRUITS OF OUR AUDACITY

The whimsical plan fixed in our minds, we began at once to conceive a keener rest for our affairs. Notwithstanding the urgency of our travelling, we had not exchanged the Duke's horses at any of the posting-houses we had passed. Poverty had taught us a fine economic prudence. Whatever we might gain in speed we should lose in momentary value, for his Grace's animals were an admirable pair, on which the best part of our fortune depended at Bristol. The continuous strain was already telling on them, however, and they flagged a good deal during the day.

The evening had already come when we approached our destination. Among the country lanes in the twilight it called for all Cynthia's intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood to enable us to pursue the direct path to her father's house. The moon was showing over the trees, and we were within a mile of the place, according to madam's account, when we were startled by a disconcerting incident. A sudden clatter of horses' hoofs arose in the lane. From whence they came we could not tell; but before we had time to think much about them, a horseman was riding beside us, with a particularly sinister-looking pistol presented at our faces.

My poor little madam nestled to me in a great deal of terror; but for my own part I must confess that I was more annoyed than daunted by such an unwarrantable intrusion.

"My dear fellow," I protested, "you are but wasting your time; and you are wasting ours too, which just now I am inclined to think is the more valuable. We have not a guinea in the world. Had we one we should be only too happy to present it to you."

The highwayman laughed in a familiar voice.

"Why," says he, putting a pair of mischievous eyes into the chaise, "is it not my friend, Lord What's-his-name?"

"My love," says I to the trembling Cynthia, "here is your papa."

"Of course," says the highwayman, "you mean the Duke of Thing-em-bob."

"To be sure I do," says I. "We are very well met, I think."

By this our chaise had stopped, and Mr. Sadler had pulled his horse up too. I was not at all displeased by this interruption, for in any circumstances the sight of this merry, cheerful fellow was welcome. He was one of those rare persons whose voice alone had the power to charm. He was a genial rogue indeed; an engaging spirit whom to meet was to ask to dinner. We were already the better for his society.

Therefore, as we had but a mile to go to the Duke's house – Hurley Place was the name of it – I proposed that we should carry him along with us, and enjoy his company at dinner. Mr. Sadler was nothing loth.

Wherefore it fell out that the Lady Cynthia returned to her ancestral home in the company of a notorious highwayman, and a bankrupt, a discredited peer. What a suppressed excitement there was to be sure when we drove up to the door, and it became known among the servants that the Lady Cynthia had returned of her own free will! More than one aged servitor, who had grown old in the service of the Duke, was so affected by the erring child's return that he shed a silent tear. Inquiry elicited the fact that there was no reason to expect our papa at present: and that not a word had been heard of his Grace since he had left the house in pursuit of his naughty daughter.

Nothing could have been more delightful than the sensations we experienced on our brief re-entry into civilization. What luxuries in the matter of washing, shaving, and polishing generally were we able to enjoy after the discomforts of our itinerary!

Cynthia had her own maid to dress her; Mr. Sadler was provided with a valet of the Duke's, and another man was found for me. Orders were given to the butler that the best dinner for three persons the cook could devise was to be served in an hour, and in the meantime we arrayed ourselves in our choicest garments to do justice to it. It was the last evening of luxury we were likely to spend; and we were determined that we would neglect no opportunity of making the most of it.

The contents of Mr. Waring's valise were a material assistance to my wardrobe, and for that matter to Mr. Sadler's too. His silk stockings and breeches, brocaded vests, and laced coats, served us admirably. We took advantage of them, chiefly, I think, for the laudable reason that we might do the more honour to Cynthia and the dinner. And I at least am free to confess that the sensation of having once again clean smart clothes upon my person gave a wonderful impetus to my self-esteem. I felt that I could look the world in the face once more, and that I was again my own man. I never was a scoffer at the virtues of fine clothes, and distrust him that is. So long as one is sure of one's tailor, one's soul may take care of itself. The grace of a good coat is communicated to the wearer.

Although Mr. Sadler and I were attired as near the first fashion as our borrowed plumes would permit, we were as nothing to Mrs. Cynthia. When she joined us in the room where the dinner was laid, my friend, the highwayman, blasé as he was, could not repress his admiration. She did indeed appear to perfection not only in the cunning of her gown, but in the sparkling animation of her face, her lively colour, and the mocking intrepidity lurking in her eyes.

Her mood was a match for the occasion. She clearly recognized the extravagant whimsicality of sitting down to dinner in such company, at such a season, and in such a place. It was a piece of mad folly, of cynical bravado; and she took her seat at the table with an air of reckless mischief that was wholly adorable. She played the game. To-morrow we must leave our native land for ever, but that night we contrived to forget everything – our perilous situation, our destitution and our desperate case, in quips and jests, good wine and boisterous laughter.

Mr. Sadler afterwards, very deservedly I do not doubt, came to be hanged. But it was sound judgment in me to invite him to our last dinner. What a fine merry rogue he was, to be sure! What an instinct he betrayed for goodfellowship! He came to be hanged, it is true, but that night his laugh rang the loudest and frankest, his jests had the keenest edge, and it was from his eyes that the most whole-hearted humour beaconed. He was as merry a rascal as any with whom I ever had the honour to drain a glass. But he was a man of true breeding too, so that he neither embarrassed Mrs. Cynthia as a highwayman less of a gentleman doubtless would have done in such singular circumstances; nor did he once arouse anger or jealousy in me.

"To your eyes, your ladyship, and to your lordship's nose," so far from provoking offence, became a source of mirth from the frank jovial tones with which it was uttered, and the inimitable gestures by which it was accompanied. For his own part, Mr. Sadler admitted that this meeting was highly piquant to him, since on a former occasion he had solemnly written us down in his own mind as a pair of cheats and impostors. It struck him as an entirely remarkable circumstance that after all we should prove to be the very persons we had purported to be; and as one no less so, that he should ever have presumed us to be otherwise. But as I pointed out to him, after all, his error was not so surprising. The judgment of the world is at the mercy of the obvious. It prefers to appraise a picture by its frame. Were it otherwise, our very titles, and material distinctions of that kind, would cease to have a meaning.

Oblivious of everything, we continued to cat and drink, and be of good cheer. In the audacity of our mood neither Cynthia nor I gave a thought to our pursuers. We did not consider that we were in the house of the enemy, and that it could be by no means unexpected that we should be surprised at any hour. And I am not sure that we were prepared greatly to care should aught so untoward happen. By this I believe we were utterly desperate. A reaction had come upon us. We, who had been so excessively solicitous for the well-being of our skins and the preservation of our perfect liberty, were at this moment unable to muster much interest in these matters. We were in a warm room, in a congenial society, snug, well fed, and mighty well content. No two persons could have been in a happier case in which to confront the worst. Let the devil walk in if he chose. For once we were in a condition to beard him. Our cheeks burnt; our eyes shone; our hearts were overflowing and generous.

Such was the state of our minds, when without a solitary note of warning, and as a wholly natural consequence, the devil walked in. In the very height of our cheerful rattle, of our foolish talk that hallowed by the bottle was so witty, the door opened suddenly, and the oath that sprang to my lips involuntarily to greet the servant who had so unceremoniously obtruded himself upon our familiar gaiety, was stifled before it was uttered. The little Duke hopped in, purple, and gobbling like a turkey. The cool and smiling Mr. Humphrey Waring, chewing his eternal wisp of straw, followed at his heels at a more elegant leisure.

I suppose their sudden unheralded appearance was to us in the nature of a thunderbolt. Yet after all it was so little unexpected as not to astonish us. And, speaking for myself, now that I was fairly cornered, my last card played, the old recklessness returned, and instead of faltering before this outraged old gentleman, I rose, bowed, and greeted him with the completest self possession. And as I did so, whether by virtue of the noble wine of his Grace's cellar, or as probably by an ecstasy of desperation, I conceived a kind of joy of our meeting.

Between his alternate gobblings and hoppings and gaspings for breath, the old gentleman must have come perilously close to his inevitable apoplexy. At first in his inarticulate fury he could neither speak nor act; and I found myself awaiting his good pleasure quite a long time, with a smile of greeting on my lips, and my hand on my heart.

CHAPTER XXII
THE LAST

In the end it was neither his Grace nor I who broke the spell. Mr. Waring took the wisp of straw from his teeth, and says:

"Tiverton, my dear fellow, you amuse me."

"I rather amuse myself," says I, a little wearily. "We are come to the last act in this somewhat pitiful poor-hearted sort of farce, and I suppose we must continue furiously to laugh until the curtain is rung down."

"Of course, my dear fellow, of course," says Waring. "But before we do so, would it not be as well if we had a few brief explanations in the true stage manner? In the first place, may I ask why you so persistently shun the society of the one person who is the most likely to contribute something towards setting you right in the eyes of the world?"

"I confess I do not understand you," says I.

"Then I am sorry for it," says my rival, with a strange frank smile. "For, after all, the person I refer to is myself."

"You?" says I.

The incredulity in my voice caused the man to open his snuff-box very deliberately, and to offer its contents to me.

"Perhaps, after all," says he, "there is no particular reason why you should take my meaning. For you have doubtless forgotten that I am the only person now alive who was privileged to witness a certain incident. But that of course may be a fact you may wish to forget; or the incident in question may be too trifling for your recollection. In any case I ask your pardon if I weary you."

"On the contrary," says I coldly, "you interest me vastly."

"The topic is one I should crave your pardon for mentioning," says the other, with his baffling air; "were not your interest so greatly at stake. I presume you are not unacquainted with the construction the world hath already put upon this matter?"

"I am not," says I curtly.

"Then I hope, my dear fellow," says Waring, "you will accept a service, however slight, at my hands. My testimony may be of some little value to you before a jury of your peers."

My rival held out his hand with a jovial grace. I stood looking at it, groping, with the wine still in my brain. For the candour sparkling in the fellow's eyes was a thing I had never seen in that place before; the winning earnestness of it was so hard to realize that it overwhelmed me. The bitter truth suddenly poured into my heart like a torrent.

"My God," says I, "all this time I have been weighing your character by the measure of my own. Is it not ever the fate of the mean and the little to do so? You have been the phantom, from whom we have fled. The phantom, however, was not in a chaise and pair, but in our own hearts!"

"The old fault, Tiverton, I protest," says Waring. "What a trite, pragmatical, moralizing fellow it is! I do hope you will not, like your damned old ancestor, lay a burden on an unprovoking posterity and write a book."

"Ecod, I will," says I, "one day. I will take a revenge of my mean mind by exhibiting it naked to the sneers of the world. But in the meantime, Waring, I must show you in your true colours to my little Cynthia. Even her feminine penetration had not divined them."

It was a light word, lightly uttered; and I cursed myself. The man was as pale as his neckcloth, and the old mocking whimsicality – alas! I had nearly writ ugliness – was in his eyes. There was but an instant in which this was to be observed, however, for with shaking fingers he opened his snuff-box, and regained possession of himself.

I offered him my hand.

"Waring," says I, "we cannot ever be friends. You will continue to loathe me as you would a thief; and I on my part shall continue to hate you for the consummate hypocrite and charlatan you are. But, curse my jacket, sir! as a dilettante in the arts, as a lover of the beautiful, I shall reverence for ever your singularly noble character."

"Then I am repaid," says this cynical, candid devil. "'Tis the reward I had looked for, my good Tiverton, that you, robber and ruffian as you are, whose foremost desire will ever be to put an inch of steel in my heart, should yet be condemned to lay your neck in the dust while Humphrey Waring walks upon it. I do not think I could desire a prettier revenge. 'Tis a dear pretty chit, though."

Involuntarily his eyes wandered across the room to Cynthia. Mine followed them, in spite of myself, jealously. It was then I saw that a strange thing had happened. Father and daughter were seated together, tears streaming down their faces, locked in one another's arms.

"Your victory is completer than I had supposed," says my rival coolly.

At the moment I did not perceive the full force of his meaning. An instant later, however, I had that felicity. The old man in a broken voice called me over to him. The tears still streamed down his cheeks.

"I am a foolish, fond old man," says his Grace. "Curse it all, was there ever such a damned, snuffling, weak old fool as I am! Ecod, I must be very old. How old am I, Humphrey?"

"Eighty-two in December, Duke."

"Curse me, so I am," says his Grace. "If I hadn't been so old – if I had been eighty now, if I had been eighty – I would 'a broken a stick across your shoulders, miss, and I would 'a peppered your hide with lead, young what's-your-name. But as I'm so old, 'od's lud! I suppose I must be benevolent. Miss says she loves you, young man – don't you, my pretty pet? – And she says you love her, so I suppose you had better marry her. Humphrey won't mind; will you, Humphrey? You be an old bachelor, and don't be plagued with daughters. But I forget the fellow's name; what's his name, Humphrey?"

"Tiverton," says Humphrey.

"Of course," says the Duke. "Knew your father, young man; thin man with a bald head and no chin; used to stutter when he got excited. Knew your grandfather too. Of course I knew your grandfather, he, he, he! Was at Eton with him. Great man, your grandfather; writ a pamphlet or something. Dirty little varlet at Eton; had red hair. What is the amount of your debts, young man? I suppose I must pay 'em, though why I don't know. But we'll go into it to-morrow, young Tiverton. I must go to bed. Give me your shoulder, Humphrey."

Here is the end of my prosaic history. The Duke's credit and influence, and Mr. Waring's testimony averted those calamities that had been such a nightmare to us. We also had the banns cried; and were married all over again by Parson Scriven, lest any irregularities in regard to the union of Jane Smith and John Jones, or Jane Jones and John Smith, should recoil on their heirs. Mr. Waring lives on his property in Ireland, troubles Saint James's little, and Devonshire less. Mr. Sadler, as I have said, came to be hanged. No man of the world was more courteous and polite than he; no man was more genial; yet I should be the last to deny that his fate was richly merited. Even in the very moment of our reconciliation on that eventful night, he stole away. A pair of cameos of great price went with him, I grieve to say. It may, of course, have been his boast that he too was a lover of the beautiful.