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

It was at this instant that the Lady Barbara caught sight of Lord Farquhart at his own end of the lime-shaded walk. Instantly her manner changed, though the damask roses still glowed and the stars still shone.

“Nay, nay, Hal” – she laid a caressing hand on his arm – “forgive my lack of manners. I’m – I’m – perchance I’m over weary. We country maids are not used to so much pleasure as you’ve given me in London.” She leaned languorously toward Ashley and he, made presumptuous by her change of tone, slipped his arm about her slender waist.

The Lady Barbara slid from his grasp with a pretty scream of amazement and shocked propriety. Then there might have followed a bit of swordplay; indeed, the Lady Barbara hoped there would – the affianced lover should have fought to defend his rights, the other should have fought for the privileges bestowed by the lady, and all the time the lady would have stood wringing her hands, moaning perchance, and praying for the discomfiture of the one or the other. But, unfortunately, none of this came to pass because, just at the critical moment, just when Lord Farquhart, watched slyly by Lady Barbara’s starry eyes, was starting forward to defend his rights, Sylvia slipped from behind a tree and flung herself with utter abandon upon Lord Farquhart.

Now, in reality, Lord Farquhart tried to force the woman away from him, but the Lady Barbara saw only that his hands were on her arms, that, in very truth, he spoke to the girl! Turning on her heel, she sped from the lime walk, followed by Mr. Ashley.

What ensued between Lord Farquhart and his Sylvia concerns the story little, for he had already told her that her reign was over, that a new queen had been enthroned in his heart. What ensued between the Lady Barbara and her escort cannot be written, for it was but a series of gasps and sharp cries on the lady’s part, interspersed with imploring commands on the lover’s part to tell him what ailed her. The interview was brought to a summary conclusion when the Lady Barbara reached her aunt’s house, for she flung the door to in his face and left him standing disconsolate on the outside.

XIV

It was on that night that the Lady Barbara received an ovation at Lord Grimsby’s rout as the belle of London town. Most beautiful she was, in reality, for the damask roses in her cheeks were dyed with the hot blood of her heart; her eyes, that were wont to be blue as the noonday sky, were black as night, and the pomegranates of her lips had been ripened by passion. Surrounded by courtiers, she flung her favors right and left with impartial prodigality. All the time her heart was crying out that she would be avenged for the insult that had been offered her that afternoon. Harry Ashley, approaching her with hesitating deference, was joyously received, although to herself she declared that she loathed him, abhorred him and detested him.

Jack Grimsby, toasting the Lady Barbara for the dozenth time, exclaimed to his crony:

“’Pon my honor, though, I know not if I envy Lord Farquhart or not. His future lady seems somewhat unstinting in her favors.”

“To me it seems that Lord Farquhart asks but little from his future lady,” laughed the crony.

“Is not that Lord Farquhart now?” asked young Grimsby. “Let us watch him approach the lady. Let us see if she has aught left for him.”

A narrow opening in the court that surrounded Lady Barbara permitted Lord Farquhart to draw near her. There was a sudden lull in the chatter that encompassed her, for others beside Jack Grimsby were questioning what the Lady Barbara had reserved for her future lord. Possibly the Lady Barbara had drawn a little aloof from her attendant swains, for she seemed to stand quite alone as she measured her fiancé with her eyes from his head to his feet and back again to his eyes. And all the while her heart was beating tempestuously and her brain was crying passionately: “If only he had loved me! If only he had loved me the least little bit!”

On Lord Farquhart’s lips was an appeal to his lady’s forbearance, in his eyes lay a message to her heart, but she saw them not. His face flushed slightly, for he knew that all eyes were bent upon him. Then it paled under Barbara’s cold glance. For a full moment she looked at him before she turned from him with a shiver that was visible to all, with a shrug that was seen by all. And yet, when she spoke, it was after a vehement movement of her hand as though she had silenced a warning voice.

“My lords and ladies,” she cried, her voice ringing even to the corners of the hushed room, “I – I feel that I must tell you all that this man, this Lord Farquhart, who was to have been my husband in less than a week, is – is your gentleman highwayman, your Black Devil who has made your London roads a terror to all honest men.”

For an instant there was absolute silence. Then surprise, amazement and consternation rose in a babel of sound, but over all Lady Barbara’s voice rang once more.

“I am positive that I speak only the truth,” she cried. “No, Lord Farquhart, I’ll not hear you, now or ever again. I’ve seen him in his black disguise. He told me himself that he was this Black Devil of the roads. He confessed it all to me.”

The lady still stood alone, and the crowd had edged away from Lord Farquhart, leaving him, also, alone. On every face surprise was written, but in no eyes, on no lips, was this so clearly marked as on Lord Farquhart’s own face.

And yet he spoke calmly.

“Is this the sequel to your jest, my lady, or has it deeper meaning than a jest?”

“Ah, jest you chose to call it once before, and jest you may still call it,” she answered, fiercely, but now her hand was pressed close against her heart.

“For a full week I have known this fact,” exclaimed Ashley, stepping to the Lady Barbara’s side. “Unfortunately, I have seen with my own eyes proofs convincing even me that my Lord Farquhart is this highway robber. I cannot doubt it, but I have refrained from speaking before because Lady Barbara asked me to be silent, asked me to protect her cousin, hoping, I suppose, that she could save him from his fate, that she could induce him to forego this perilous pursuit; but – ”

Lord Farquhart’s hand was closing on his sword, but he did not fail even then to note the disdain with which Lady Barbara turned from her champion. She hurriedly approached Lord Grimsby, who was looking curiously at this highwayman who he himself had had reason to think was the devil incarnate.

“I beg your pardon, Lord Grimsby” – Lady Barbara was still impetuous – “for this interruption of your fête, but, to me, it seemed unwarranted that this man should longer masquerade among you as a gentleman.”

She swept away from Lord Grimsby. She passed close to Lord Farquhart, lingering long enough to whisper for his ear alone: “You see I can forgive a crime, but not an insult.” Then, sending a hurried message to her aunt, she paced on down the room, her head held high, the damask roses still blooming brilliantly, the stars still shining brightly.

A score of officious hands held her cloak, a dozen officious voices called her chair. And my Lady Barbara thanked her helpers with smiling lips that were still pomegranate red, and yet the curtains of her chair caught her first sob as they descended about her, and it seemed but a disheveled mass of draperies that the footmen discovered when they set the lady down at her own door, so prone she was with grief and despair.

XV

Lord Farquhart seemed to recover himself but slowly from the shock of Lady Barbara’s denunciation, from the surprise of her whispered words. At last he raised his eyes to Lord Grimsby, who was still looking at him curiously.

“I fear that I should also ask your pardon, my Lord Grimsby, for this confusion.” Lord Farquhart’s words came slowly. “My cousin, the Lady Barbara, must be strangely overwrought. With your permission, I will follow her and attend to her needs.”

He turned and for the first time looked definitely at the little knot of men that surrounded him. The women, young and old, had been withdrawn from his environment by their escorts. His eyes traveled slowly from one to another of the familiar faces.

“Surely, my Lord Grimsby,” clamored Ashley, “you will not let the fellow escape!”

“Surely my Lord Grimsby is going to place no reliance on a tale like this told by a whimsical girl!” retorted Lord Farquhart before Lord Grimsby’s slow words had fallen on his ears.

“We will most assuredly take all measures for safeholding my Lord Farquhart.”

“But, Lord Grimsby,” cried Farquhart, realizing for the first time that the situation might have a serious side, “you surely do not believe this tale!”

“I would like to see some reason for doubting the lady’s word,” answered the older man. “And you forget that her story is corroborated by Mr. Ashley. Neither must you overlook the fact that for some time the authorities have been convinced that this highwayman was no common rogue, that he is undoubtedly some one closely connected with our London life, if – if indeed – ” But this was no place for Lord Grimsby to assert his own opinion that the highwayman was indeed the devil incarnate.

“Why, the whole thing is the merest fabrication,” cried Lord Farquhart, impatiently. “It is all without reason, without sense, without possible excuse. The Lady Barbara’s imagination has been played upon in some way, for some reason that I cannot understand. You heard her declare that she’d seen me in the fellow’s disguise. That is an absolute impossibility. I’ve never seen the rogue, much less impersonated him.”

“You shall, of course, have the benefit of any doubt, Lord Farquhart.” Lord Grimsby’s voice had assumed its judicial tones and fell with sinister coldness on every ear. “But, innocent or guilty, you must admit that the safety of his majesty’s realm demands that the truth be proved.”

“Ay, it shall be proved, too,” cried Jack Grimsby, who had been so warmly befriended in time of direct need by the Black Highwayman. “And you shall have the benefit of every doubt there may be, Percy. Rest assured of that. And in the event that there is no doubt, if it is proved that you are our Black Devil, you’ll still go free. Your case will be in my father’s hands, and I here repeat my oath that if the Black Devil goes to the gallows, I go on the road, following as close as may be in his footsteps.”

Farquhart shuddered out from under the protecting hand young Grimsby had laid on his shoulder.

“You speak as though you half believed the tale,” he cried. His eyes traveled once again around the little circle. Then his face grew stern. “Let Mr. Ashley repeat his tale,” he said, slowly. “Let him tell the Lady Barbara’s story and his own corroboration as circumstantially as may be.”

“Yes, let Harry Ashley tell his story,” echoed Jack Grimsby, “and when he has finished let him say where and when he will measure swords with me, for if he lies he lies like a blackguard, and if he spoke the truth he speaks it like a liar.”

Ashley’s sword was half out of its sheath, but it was arrested by Lord Grimsby’s voice.

“I will consent that Mr. Ashley should tell his story here and now,” he said. “It’s unusual and irregular, but the circumstances are unusual and irregular. I request your appreciation of this courtesy, my Lord Farquhart, and as for you, my son, a gentleman’s house may serve strange purposes, but it’s no place for a tavern brawler. So take heed of your words and manners.”

Lord Farquhart had merely bowed his head in answer to Lord Grimsby’s words; Jack still stood near him, his hand on his shoulder, but Ashley looked in vain for a pair of friendly eyes to which he might direct his tale. And yet he knew that everyone was waiting avidly for his words.

“The story is short and proves itself,” he began. “A week ago the Lady Barbara Gordon was traveling toward London attended only by her father’s servants. My Lord Farquhart, with a party of his friends, among whom I was included at that time, awaited her at Marmaduke Bass’ tavern, The Jolly Grig. A short time before the Lady Barbara was to arrive, Lord Farquhart withdrew to his room, presumably to sleep, until – ”

“Ay, and sleep he did,” interrupted young Treadway, who spoke for the first time. “We both slept in my room on the ground floor of the tavern.”

“You slept, no doubt, Mr. Treadway,” answered Lord Grimsby. “But, if so, how can you vouch for the fact that Lord Farquhart slept?”

“I can vouch for it – I can vouch for it because I know he slept,” spluttered Treadway.

“I fear me much that your reasoning will not help to save your friend,” answered the councillor, a little scornfully. “Let me beg that Mr. Ashley be not again interrupted to so little purpose.”

“While, according to his own account, Mr. Treadway slept,” continued Ashley, “while he supposed Lord Farquhart was also sleeping, I heard Lord Farquhart singing in his room overhead. At the time I paid little heed to it. In fact, I did not think of it again that night, although, if I remember rightly, I commented on Lord Farquhart’s voice to Mr. Cecil Lindley, who sat with me in the tavern. It was full fifteen minutes after that when the Lady Barbara drove into the inn, crying that she had been waylaid by the Black Highwayman. Her rings had been stolen, her rings and a jeweled gauntlet and a rose. She was strangely confused and would not permit us to ride in pursuit of the villain, averring that she had promised him immunity in exchange for her own life.”

“A pretty tale,” Jack Grimsby again interrupted, in spite of his father’s commands. “It’s a lie on its own face. ’Tis well known that the Black Devil has never taken a life, has never even threatened bodily injury.”

“Be that as it may” – Ashley’s level voice ignored the tone of the interruption, although his nervous fingers were on his sword – “when the Lady Barbara’s companion, Mistress Benton, tried to say that the Lady Barbara had recognized her assailant, that the Lady Barbara had willingly descended from the coach with the highwayman, the Lady Barbara silenced her peremptorily and ordered that we hurry with all speed to London. ’Twas the following morning, my Lord Grimsby, that the truth was revealed to me, for Lord Farquhart’s own servant returned to the Lady Barbara, in my presence, the jewels that had been stolen the night before, the jewels and the rose the highwayman had taken from her.”

“You forget the jeweled gauntlet, Mr. Ashley.” Again it was Jack Grimsby’s sneering voice that interrupted Ashley’s tale. “Did my Lord Farquhart keep his lady’s glove when he returned the other baubles?”

Ashley’s face flushed, but he looked steadily at Lord Grimsby; he directed the conclusion of his story to Lord Grimsby’s ears.

“It was then that the Lady Barbara confessed, much against her will, I will admit, that it was indeed her cousin and her fiancé who had waylaid her, merely to confess to her his identity with this bandit whose life is, assuredly, forfeit to the crown.”

Lord Farquhart had listened in tense silence. Now he started forward, his hand on his sword, but his arms were caught by two of Lord Grimsby’s men. “You will admit, my Lord Farquhart, that the matter demands explanation,” said the councillor, dryly. “How came you by the jewels and rose? Can you tell us? And what of the missing gauntlet?”

“The rings and the rose my servant found in my coat,” answered Farquhart, his eyes so intent on his questioner’s face that he failed to see the smile that curved the lips of those who heard him. “The gauntlet I never saw, I never had it in my possession for a moment.”

“How did you account for the jewels in your coat if you did not put them there yourself?” demanded Lord Grimsby.

“At first I was at a loss to account for them at all.” Lord Farquhart’s voice showed plainly that he resented the change in his questioner’s manner. “I recalled my cousin’s confusion when she had told her tale of highway robbery, and all at once it seemed to me that the whole affair was an invention of her own, some madcap jest that she was playing on me, perchance to test my bravery, to see if I would ride forthwith after the villain. If so, I had failed her signally, for I had accepted her commands and gone with her straight to London. I supposed, in furtherance of this idea, that she had hired her own servant, or bribed mine, to hide the jewels in my coat. I never thought once of the gauntlet she had claimed to lose, never remembered it from that night until now. I sent the jewels to her, and later in the day I taxed her with the jest, and she agreed, it seemed to me, that it had been a jest and asked that the return of the rings might close the incident. I have not spoken of it since, nor has she, until to-night.”

There was a long silence, and then Lord Grimsby spoke.

“Your manner carries conviction, Lord Farquhart, but Mr. Ashley’s tale sounds true. Perchance some prank is at the bottom of all this, but you will pardon me if I but fulfill my duty to the crown. The case shall be conducted with all speed, but until your name is cleared, or until we find the perpetrator of the joke, if joke it be, I must hold you prisoner.”

There was a short scuffle, a sharp clash of arms. But these came from Lord Farquhart’s friends. Lord Farquhart himself stood as though stunned. He walked away as though he were in a dream, and not until he was safely housed under bolt and bar in the sheriff’s lodge could he even try to sift the matter to a logical conclusion.

For an instant only did he wonder if Barbara and Ashley had chosen this way to rid themselves of him. He remembered with a gleam of triumph Barbara’s disdainful manner toward Ashley when he had stepped to her side, vouching for the truth of her statement. He remembered, too, that Barbara had had short moments of kindness toward him in the last few days, that there had been moments when she had been exceeding sweet to him; when he had even hoped that he was, indeed, winning her love.

Then, like a flash, he remembered Sylvia’s presence under the trees that afternoon. Undoubtedly Barbara had seen her, and if Barbara had grown to care for him ever so little, she would have resented bitterly a thing like that. That might have been the insult to which she referred. But the crime! Of what crime had he been guilty? Assuredly she did not believe, herself, the tale she had told. She did not believe that he was this highwayman.

Here Lord Farquhart caught a gleam of light. Ashley might have convinced her that such a tale was true. Ashley might have arranged the highway robbery and might have placed the jewels in his coat to throw the guilt on him. Ashley was undoubtedly at the bottom of the whole thing. Then he remembered Ashley’s flush when the gauntlet had been referred to. Had Ashley kept the gauntlet, then?

Following fast upon this question was another flash of light even brighter than the first. To Farquhart the truth seemed to stand out clear and transparent. Ashley was the gentleman of the highways! Ashley was the Black Devil. Farquhart threw back his head and laughed long and loud. If only he had used his wits, he would have denounced the fellow where he stood.

And in this realization of Ashley’s guilt, and in the consciousness that Barbara must love him at least a little if she had been jealous of Sylvia, Lord Farquhart slept profoundly.

XVI

All this merely brings the narrative back to the announcement made by Marmaduke to Lindley and Johan when they entered the courtyard of The Jolly Grig after the fight with the highwaymen.

As may be supposed, it was several nights before Lindley was sufficiently recovered from his wound to again keep tryst with Johan, the player’s boy. When at last he could ride out to the edge of the Ogilvie woods, he found the lad sitting on the ground under an oak, apparently waiting for whatever might happen. He did not speak at all until he was accosted by Lindley, and then he merely recited in a listless manner that Mistress Judith was gone to London with her father.

The boy’s manner was so changed, his tone was so forlorn, that Lindley’s sympathy was awakened. He wondered if the lad really loved Judith so devotedly.

“And that has left you so disconsolate?” he asked.

“Ay, my master!” Indeed the youth’s tone was disconsolate, even as a true lover’s might have been.

“And when went Mistress Judith to London?” asked Lindley. “This afternoon? This morning?”

“But no. She went some four days ago, all in a hurry, as it seemed,” Johan answered.

“Four days ago!” echoed Lindley. “But why did you not send me word?” He was thinking of the days that had been wasted with his lady near him, all unknown to him, in London.

“She – I mean – I thought you would be here each night,” stammered the boy, contritely, and yet his tone was listless. “I’ve but kept the tryst with you.”

Lindley looked at the boy curiously. Preoccupied as he was with his own thoughts, he still recognized the change in his companion.

“What’s the matter, Johan?” he asked. “You were not hurt the other night, were you? Are you still brooding on the fact that you killed your man? Are you ill? Or do you fear that I’ve forgot my debt? What ails you? Can’t you tell me?” The questions hurried on, one after another. “Or is it Mistress Judith’s absence, alone, that hurts you thus? Is she to be long in London?”

“N – no. That is, I do not know,” the boy made answer to the last question. “We, my master and I and all his company, go ourselves early to-morrow to London. Doubtless I shall see Mistress Judith there.”

“Why, then, ’tis only that the scene will shift to London,” cried Lindley. “Cheer up, my lad, we’ll name a tryst in London. Besides, there’s news waiting you in London; news for you and your master concerning your bond to him. You hardly look the part of a lad who’s won to freedom by a pretty bit of swordplay. You should have learned ere now to fit your countenance to the parts you perform.”

“But I’ve performed so few parts, Master Lindley. I am only Johan, the player’s boy, and, by your leave, I’ll go now, and for a tryst – she – for our tryst, say at ten o’clock, in front of Master Timothy Ogilvie’s mansion, where Mistress Judith and her father lodge. I’ll have surely seen Mistress Judith then, and can report to you any change, if change there be.”

The slender lad slipped back into the shadows of the Ogilvie woods, but for full ten minutes he held Lindley’s thoughts away from the lady of his heart’s desire. What could ail the lad to be so changed, so spiritless? Was his love so deep that to be weaned from Judith for even a few short hours could break his spirit thus? Or was it possible that the duel and the fatigues of that midnight encounter had been too much for his strength? Lindley could answer none of these questions, so the lover’s thoughts soon strayed back to Mistress Judith, and the player’s lad was forgot.

But even Mistress Judith held not all of Lindley’s thoughts that night, for Lord Farquhart’s fate was resting heavily on his mind. That Farquhart was, indeed, the gentleman of the highways Lindley knew to be impossible, and yet all the facts seemed to be against the imprisoned lord. Even Lindley’s word had gone against him, for Lindley had been questioned, and had been obliged to admit that he had heard Lord Farquhart singing in his room above the stairs at the very time when Clarence Treadway, when Farquhart himself, swore that he was asleep belowstairs in Treadway’s room. There was no evidence, whatsoever, for Lord Farquhart save his own words. All the evidence was against him.

And the affair that had savored more of a jest than of reality seemed gradually to be settling down to a dull, unpleasant truth. Farquhart could and would tell but the one tale. Ashley would tell but one tale, and he, in truth, had convinced himself of Farquhart’s guilt, absurd as it seemed. The Lady Barbara could only lie on her bed and moan and sob, and cry that she loved Lord Farquhart; that she wished she could unsay her words. She could not deny the truth of what she had told, though nothing could induce her to tell the story over. But all of her stuttering, stammering evasions of the truth seemed only to fix the guilt more clearly upon Lord Farquhart. Even to Lindley, who had been with him on the night in question, it did not seem altogether impossible that Lord Farquhart had had time to ride forth, waylay his cousin and rejoin his friends at the inn ere the lady drove into the courtyard.