“Go after them!” ejaculated his lordship, his face alarmingly suffused with colour. “I should rather think so, ma’am! Implore me, indeed! Let me tell you you have no need to do that! My daughter to be running off to Gretna Green like any—Oh, let the pair of them but wait until I catch up with them!”
“Well, they won’t do that!” said Mrs. Orde, with some asperity. “And if you do catch them (which I don’t consider certain, for you may depend upon it they have several hours’ start of you, and will stay away from the post roads for as far as they may) you will be so good as to remember, sir, that my son is little more than a schoolboy, and has acted, I don’t question, from motives of the purest chivalry!”
At this point, perceiving that his host, having forgotten all about him, was preparing to storm out of the room, Sylvester judged it to be time to make his presence felt. Coming back into the centre of the room, he said soothingly: “Oh, I should think he would catch them quite easily, ma’am! The strongest probability is that they will run into a snow-drift. I believe it has been snowing for several days in the north. My dear Lord Marlow, before you set out in pursuit of the runaways you must allow me to take my leave of you. In such circumstances I daresay you and her ladyship must be wishing me at Jericho. Accept my thanks for your agreeable hospitality, my regret for its unavoidable curtailment, and my assurance—I trust unnecessary!—that you may rely upon my discretion. It remains only for me to wish you speedy success in your mission, and to beg that you will not delay your departure on my account.”
With these words, delivered very much in the grand manner, he shook hands with Lady Marlow, executed two slight bows to Mrs. Orde and Miss Battery, and was gone from the room before his host had collected his wits enough to do more than utter a half-hearted protest.
His valet, a very correct gentleman’s gentleman, received the news of his immediate departure from Austerby with a deferential bow and an impassive countenance; John Keighley, suffering all the discomfort of a severe cold in his head, bluntly protested. “We’ll never reach London, your grace, not with the roads in the state they’re in, by all accounts.”
“I daresay we shan’t,” replied Sylvester. “But do you think I can’t reach Speenhamland? I’ll prove you wrong!”
Swale, already folding one of Sylvester’s coats, heard this magical word with relief. Speenhamland meant the Pelican, a hostelry as famous for the excellence of its accommodation as for the extortionate nature of its charges. Far better entertainment would be found there than at Austerby, as well for his grace’s servants as for his grace himself.
Unmoved by this reflection, Keighley objected: “It’s more than thirty miles from here, your grace! You’ll have to change horses, and postilions too, because the boys couldn’t do it, not if we run into snow.”
“Oh, I’m not travelling in the chaise!” said Sylvester. “I’ll take the curricle, of course, and drive myself. You will come with me, and Swale can follow in the chaise. Tell the boys they must go as far as they can without a change. They are to bring my own team on by easy stages to the Pelican, and if I’m not there, to town. Swale, put up all I might need for several days in one of my portmanteaux!”
“If your grace should wish me to travel in the curricle I shall be happy to do so,” said Swale, with less truth than heroism.
“No, Keighley will be of far more use to me,” replied Sylvester.
His devoted retainer grunted, and went off to the stables. Within half an hour, resigned to his fate, he was seated beside his master in the curricle, gloomily surveying the prospect, which had by this time become extremely threatening. He had added a large muffler to his attire, and from time to time blew his nose on a handkerchief drenched with camphor. Upon Sylvester’s addressing a chatty remark to him, he said primly: “Yes, your grace.” To a second effort to engage him in conversation he replied: “I couldn’t say, your grace.”
“Oh, couldn’t you?” Sylvester retorted. “Very well! Say what you wish to: that it’s devilish cold, and I’m mad to make the attempt to get to the Pelican! It’s all one to me, and will very likely make you feel more amiable.”
“I wouldn’t so demean myself, your grace,” replied Keighley, with dignity.
“Well, that’s a new come-out,” commented Sylvester. “I thought I was in for one of your scolds.” Receiving no response to this, he said cajolingly: “Come out of the sullens, John, for God’s sake!”
Never, from the day when a very small Sylvester had first coaxed him to do his imperious will, had Keighley been able to resist that note. He said severely: “Well, if ever there was a crack-brained start, your grace! Driving right into a snowstorm, like you are! All I say is, don’t you go blaming me if we end up in a drift!”
“No, I won’t,” Sylvester promised. “The thing was, you see, it was now or never—or at least for a week. You may have been enjoying yourself: I wasn’t! In fact, I’d sooner put up at a hedge tavern.”
Keighley chuckled. “I suspicioned that was the way of it. I didn’t think we should be there long: not when I heard about the smoke in your grace’s bedchamber. Nor Swale didn’t like it, being very niffy-naffy in his ways.”
“Like me,” remarked Sylvester. “In any event, I could hardly have remained, when his lordship was suddenly called away, could I?”
“No, your grace. Particularly seeing as how you wasn’t wishful to.”
Sylvester laughed; and good relations being restored between them they proceeded on their way in perfect amity. It was snowing in Devizes, but they reached Marlborough in good time, and at the Castle Inn stopped to rest the horses, and to partake of a second breakfast. Roaring fires and excellent food strongly tempted Sylvester to remain there, and he might have done so had it not occurred to him it was situated rather too near to Austerby for safety. The arrival of the Bath Mail clinched the matter. It was several hours late, but Sylvester learned from the coachman that although the road was bad in parts, it was nowhere impassable. He decided to push on. Keighley, fortified by a potation of gin, beer, nutmeg, and sugar, which he referred to as hot flannel, raised no objection; so the horses were put to again.
It was heavier going over the next ten miles, and once beyond the Forest of Savernake Sylvester was obliged, once or twice, to pull up, while Keighley got down from the curricle to discover the line of the road. Hungerford was reached, however, without mishap. Sylvester’s famous dapple-greys, with a light vehicle behind them, were tired, but not distressed. If rested for a space, he judged them to be perfectly capable of accomplishing the next stage, which would bring him to Speenhamland, and the Pelican.
By the time they set forward again on their journey it was past four o’clock, and to the hazards of the weather were added those of failing daylight. With the sky so uniformly overcast Keighley was of the opinion that it would be dark before they reached Newbury, but he knew his master too well to waste his breath in remonstrance. Sylvester, who could have numbered on one hand the occasions when he had been ill enough to coddle himself, was neither disconcerted by the blinding snow, nor troubled by its discomforts. Keighley, his cold at its zenith, wondered whether he could be persuaded to draw rein at the Halfway House, and would not have been altogether sorry had they foundered within reach of this or any other hostelry. Neither he nor Sylvester was familiar with the road, but fortune favoured them, just when it became most difficult. They met a stage-coach making its slow and perilous progress towards Bath, and were able to follow its deep tracks for several miles, before these became obliterated by the falling snowflakes. They were still discernible when Keighley’s sharp eyes saw the wreck of a curricle lying in the ditch, and remarked that someone had had a nasty spill. The curricle was covered with snow, but it was plainly a sporting vehicle, and had just as plainly been travelling eastward. Sylvester was assailed suddenly by a suspicion. He pulled up, the better to scrutinize the derelict. “It’s a curricle, John.”