The Castle Inn | Page 3

to play with me, and Berkeley was to ensure my purse.'
'He would as soon take it,' Sir George answered languidly, gazing
through the glass.
'Sooner, by--!' cried the third traveller, a saturnine, dark-faced man of
thirty-four or more, who sat with his back to the horses, and toyed with
a pistol that lay on the seat beside him. 'I'm content if your lordship is.'
'Then have at you! Call the main, Colonel. You may be the devil
among the highwaymen--that was Selwyn's joke, was it not?--but I'll

see the colour of your money.'
'Beware of him. He doved March,' Sir George said indifferently.
'He won't strip me,' cried the young lord. 'Five is the main. Five to four
he throws crabs! Will you take, George?'
Soane did not answer, and the two, absorbed in the rattle of the dice
and the turns of their beloved hazard, presently forgot him; his lordship
being the deepest player in London and as fit a successor to the luckless
Lord Mountford as one drop of water to another. Thus left to himself,
and as effectually screened from remark as if he sat alone, Sir George
devoted himself to an eager scrutiny of the night, looking first through
one window and then through the other; in which he persevered though
darkness had fallen so completely that only the hedges showed in the
lamplight, gliding giddily by in endless walls of white. On a sudden he
dropped the glass with an exclamation, and thrust out his head.
'Pull up!' he cried. 'I want to descend.'
The young lord uttered a peevish exclamation. 'What is to do?' he
continued, glancing round; then, instantly returning to the dice, 'if it is
my purse they want, say Berkeley is here. That will scare them. What
are you doing, George?'
'Wait a minute,' was the answer; and in a twinkling Soane was out, and
was ordering the servant, who had climbed down, to close the door.
This effected, he strode back along the road to a spot where a figure,
cloaked, and hooded, was just visible, lurking on the fringe of the
lamplight. As he approached it, he raised his hat with an exaggeration
of politeness.
'Madam,' he said, 'you asked for me, I believe?'
The woman--for a woman it was, though he could see no more of her
than a pale face, staring set and Gorgon-like from under the hood--did
not answer at once. Then, 'Who are you?' she said.

'Colonel Berkeley,' he answered with assurance, and again saluted her.
'Who killed the highwayman at Hounslow last Christmas?' she cried.
'The same, madam.'
'And shot Farnham Joe at Roehampton?'
'Yes, madam. And much at your service.'
'We shall see,' she answered, her voice savagely dubious. 'At least you
are a gentleman and can use a pistol? But are you willing to risk
something for justice' sake?'
'And the sake of your beaux yeux, madam?' he answered, a laugh in his
voice. 'Yes.'
'You mean it?'
'Prove me,' he answered.
His tone was light; but the woman, who seemed to labour under strong
emotion, either failed to notice this or was content to put up with it.
'Then send on your carriage,' she said.
His jaw fell at that, and had there been light by which to see him he
would have looked foolish. At last, 'Are we to walk?' he said.
'Those are the lights of Oxford,' she answered. 'We shall be there in ten
minutes.'
'Oh, very well,' he said, 'A moment, if you please.'
She waited while he went to the carriage and told the astonished
servants to leave his baggage at the Mitre; this understood, he put in his
head and announced to his host that he would come on next day. 'Your
lordship must excuse me to-night,' he said.
'What is up?' my lord asked, without raising his eyes or turning his

head. He had taken the box and thrown nicks three times running, at
five guineas the cast; and was in the seventh heaven. 'Ha! five is the
main. Now you are in it, Colonel. What did you say, George? Not
coming! What is it?'
'An adventure.'
'What! a petticoat?'
'Yes,' Sir George answered, smirking.
'Well, you find 'em in odd places. Take care of yourself. But shut the
door, that is a good fellow. There is a d----d draught.'
Sir George complied, and, nodding to the servants, walked back to the
woman. As he reached her the carriage with its lights whirled away,
and left them in darkness.
Soane wondered if he were not a fool for his pains, and advanced a step
nearer to conviction when the woman with an impatient 'Come!' started
along the road; moving at a smart pace in the direction which the
chariot had taken, and betraying so little shyness