“I am not in the least mad. I am going after the London stage, to recover that brat of mine. Be a good fellow, now, and tell them to harness the horses at once!”
“Oh, very well!” Cedric said. “If that’s the way it is! But I’ll be satisfied with nothing less than a cavalry regiment, mind!”
“You shall have anything you like!” promised Sir Richard, already half-way up the stairs.
“Mad, quite mad!” said Cedric despairingly, and set up a shout for an ostler.
Ten minutes later, the bays were harnessed to the curricle, and Sir Richard had stepped out into the yard, pulling on his gloves. “Famous!” he said. “I hoped you were driving your bays.”
“If you lame ’em—”
“Ceddie, are you—is it possible that you are going to tell me how to drive?” asked Sir Richard.
Cedric, who was still clad in his exotic dressing-gown, leaned against the door-post, and grinned. “You’ll spring ’em. I know you!”
“If I lame them, I will make you a present of my own greys!” said Sir Richard, gathering up the reins.
“Part with your greys?” exclaimed Cedric. “No, no, you’d never bring yourself to do that, Ricky!”
“Don’t disturb yourself: I shan’t have to.”
Cedric made a derisive sound, and lingered to watch him mount on to the box-seat. A commotion behind him distracted his attention, and he turned in time to see Mrs Hopkins enter the inn through the front-door, closely followed by a thick-set man in a frieze coat, and a broad-brimmed hat. Mrs Hopkins was labouring under great agitation, and sank immediately into a chair, volubly explaining to the bewildered landlord that she had never had such a turn in her life, and did not expect to recover from her palpitations for a twelvemonth. Took up by a Bow Street Runner, Tom!” she panted. “And him so innocent-seeming as never was!”
“Who?” demanded her spouse.
“That poor young gentleman which is Sir Richard’s cousin! Under my very eyes, Tom, and me not dreaming of such a thing! And then if he didn’t break away, the which I can’t but be glad of, whatever any one may say, Mr Gudgeon not excepted, for a nicer-spoken young gentleman I never did see, and I’m a mother myself, and I have a heart, though others may not, naming no names, and meaning no offence!”
“My God, here’s a pretty coil!” exclaimed Cedric, grasping with remarkable swiftness the gist of her remarks. “Hi, Ricky, wait!”
The bays were dancing with impatience. “Stand away from their heads!” commanded Sir Richard.
“And here’s Mr Gudgeon himself, wishful to see Sir Richard and Mr Brandon very particular, which I was obliged to take him up in the trap, though little I want Bow Street Runners, or the like, in my house, as you well know, Tom!”
“Ricky!” shouted Cedric, striding out into the yard. “Wait, man! That bloodhound of mine is here, and there’s the devil to pay!”
“Fob him off, Ceddie, fob him off!” called Sir Richard over his shoulder, and swept out of the yard into the street.
“Ricky, you madman, hold a minute!” roared Cedric.
But the curricle had bowled out of sight The ostler enquired whether he should run after it.
“Run after my bays?” said Cedric scornfully. “You’d need wings, not legs, to catch them, my good fool!”
He turned back to the inn, encountering in the doorway Lady Luttrell, who had come out to see what all the shouting was about.
“What is the matter, Mr Brandon?” she asked. “You seem very much put out.”
“Matter, ma’am! Why, here’s Richard gone off after the London Stage, and that crazy girl of his taken up by the Bow Street Runner in Bristol!”
“Good God, this is horrible!” she exclaimed. “Sir Richard must be recalled at all costs! The child must be rescued!”
“Well, by all accounts she seems to have rescued herself,” said Cedric. “But where she may be now, the Lord only knows! However, I’m glad that Runner has arrived: I was getting deuced tired of hunting for him.”
“But is it impossible to stop Sir Richard?” she asked urgently.
“Lord, ma’am, he’s half-way to the London road by now!” said Cedric.
This pronouncement was not strictly accurate. Sir Richard, driving out of Queen Charlton at very much the same time as Miss Creed was boarding the Accommodation coach at Kingswood, chose to take the road to Bath rather than that which led to Keynsham, and thence, due north, through Oldland to join the Bristol road at Warmley. His experience of Accommodation coaches was not such as to induce him to place much confidence in their being likely to cover more than eight miles an hour, and he calculated that if the stage had left Bristol at nine o’clock, which seemed probable, it would not reach the junction of the Bath and Bristol roads until noon at the earliest. The Honourable Cedric’s bays, drawing a light curricle, might be depended upon to arrive at Chippenham considerably in advance of that hour, and the Bath road had the advantage of being well known to Sir Richard.
The bays, which seemed to have been fed exclusively on oats, were in fine fettle, and the miles flashed by. They were not, perhaps, an easy pair to handle, but Sir Richard, a notable whip, had little trouble with them, and was so well satisfied with their pace and stamina that he began to toy seriously with the idea of making the Honourable Cedric a handsome offer for them. He was obliged to rein them in to a sedate pace whilst threading his way through the crowded streets of Bath, but once clear of the town he was able to give them their heads on the long stretch to Corsham, and arrived finally in Chippenham to learn that the Accommodation coach from Bristol was not due there for nearly another hour. Sir Richard repaired to the best posting-inn, superintended the disposal of the sweating bays, and ordered breakfast. When he had consumed a dish of ham-and-eggs, and drunk two cups of coffee, he had the bays put-to again, and drove westward along the Bristol road, at a leisurely pace, until he came to a fork, where a weather-beaten signpost pointed northward to Nettleton and Acton Turville, and westward to Wroxhall, Marshfield, and Bristol. Here he reined in, to await the approach of the stage.
It was not long in putting in an appearance. It rounded a bend in the deserted road ahead, a green-and-gold monstrosity, rocking and swaying top-heavily in the centre of the road, with half a dozen outside passengers on the roof, the boot piled high with baggage, and the guard sitting up behind with the yard of tin in his hand.
Sir Richard drew the curricle across the road, hitched up his reins, and jumped lightly down from the box-seat. The bays were quiet enough by this time, and except for some fidgeting, showed no immediate disposition to bolt.
Finding his way barred, the stage-coachman pulled up his team, and demanded aggrievedly what game Sir Richard thought he was playing.
“No game at all!” said Sir Richard. “You have a fugitive aboard, and when I have taken him into custody, you are at liberty to proceed on your way.”
“Ho, I am, am I?” said the coachman, nonplussed, but by no means mollified. “Fine doings on the King’s Highway! Ah, and so you’ll find afore you’re much older!”
One of the inside passengers, a red-faced man with very bushy whiskers, poked his head out of the window to discover the reason for the unexpected halt; the guard climbed down from the roof to argue with Sir Richard; and Pen, squashed between a fat farmer, and a woman with a perpetual sniff, had a sudden fear that she had been overtaken by the Bow Street Runner. The sound of the guard’s voice, saying: “There, and if I didn’t suspicion him from the werry moment I set eyes on him at Kingswood!” did nothing to allay her alarms. She turned a white, frightened face towards the door, just as it was pulled open, and the steps let down.
The next instant, Sir Richard’s tall, immaculate person filled the opening, and Pen, uttering an involuntary sound between a squeak and a whimper, turned first red, and then white, and managed to utter the one word: “No!”