Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905

A GENTLEMAN OF THE HIGHWAYS

By Kathryn Jarboe

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. London knows all about that. And – and there’s one other. I’ve forgotten his name. It matters not. And the gentlemen travel with a servant apiece. Oh, the other’s Mr. Lindley, Mr. Cecil Lindley. Why, lad, what’s the matter with you?”

This query was in response to a sharp “Aie, aie,” that had shot from the stranger’s lips.

“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 following day,” added Treadway, “doubling the alms bestowed by the bishop, requesting that the gold be used for the good of the church!”

“A devilish good joke, I call that,” laughed Lord Farquhart. “And they say, too, that the poor old bishop is actually afraid to use the money for fear it – why, I really believe he is afraid that his Satanic majesty did have some part in the prank.”

“And old Grimsby swears he saw the fellow’s tail and cloven hoof when he was waylaid by him,” commented Lindley.

“I’d not heard that Lord Grimsby had been attacked by this highwayman.” This was Ashley’s first entrance into the conversation.

“Attacked!” the three men cried in chorus.

“Why, he was held up in his own garden,” explained Treadway. “It was just after it had been noised abroad that he had disinherited Jack. Poor Jack was bemoaning his luck and his debts in prison, and they say that Lord Grimsby spent all his time pacing the walks of his garden cursing Jack and those selfsame debts. That is to say, that is what he did before the episode of the highwayman. Then the man – or devil, whatever he is – appeared quite close behind Lord Grimsby, gagged him and blindfolded him, and would not release him until he had signed a promise to reinstate Jack, pay all his debts and present him with money enough to live like a prince of the blood for a year. Hard as it is to believe, old Grimsby signed it, and afterward he was afraid to go back on his signature, for fear – why, simply for fear that the devil would come for him if he did. Jack, of course, is all for worshiping the devil now, and swears if this gentlemanly highwayman proves to be human, and ever comes near the gallows, he’ll save him or become highwayman himself. So, in reality, old Grimsby will have to use his power to save this thief, if ever he’s caught, to keep his own son and heir off the road.”

“And Lord Grimsby’s power is absolute, is it not?” asked Ashley.

“As absolute as his majesty’s command,” agreed Treadway.

“Has it not been whispered in certain circles that this highwayman is some well-known London gallant, merely amusing himself with the excitement and danger of the game of the road?” asked Lindley.

“Somewhat too dangerous an amusement, in spite of its profits,” sneered Ashley.

“Ah, but that’s the most curious part of it!” cried Treadway. “The fellow never keeps anything that he takes. There are some two-score robberies laid to his account, and in each and every case some poor fellow down on his luck for want of funds has received, most mysteriously, the stolen wealth.”

“He fights like a fiend, they say,” commented Lord Farquhart, “whether he is a gentleman or not. And yet he has seriously wounded no one. Sir Henry Willoughby confessed to me that the fellow had pinked him twenty times in a moonlit, roadside attack, then disarmed him with a careless laugh and walked off, taking nothing with him. Sir Henry himself, mind you! The most noted duelist in London!”

“Why not drink to the fiend and a speedy meeting with him?” laughed Lindley. “I promise you that if I meet him I’ll unmask him and see if he be man or devil. To the Black Devil himself!” he cried, lifting high his wine cup. “To this most honorable and fearless gentleman of the highways!”

The four voices rose in chorus to the brown rafters of the inn.

“To this most honorable and fearless gentleman of the highways! To the Black Devil himself!”