The Castle Inn | Page 3

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 or timidity as to seem unconscious of his company. The neighbourhood of Oxford is low and flat, and except where a few lights marked the outskirts of the city a wall of darkness shut them in, permitting nothing to be seen that lay more than a few paces away. A grey drift of clouds, luminous in comparison with the gloom about them, moved slowly overhead, and out of the night the raving of a farm-dog or the creaking of a dry bough came to the ear with melancholy effect.
The fine gentleman of that day had no taste for the wild, the rugged, or the lonely. He lived too near the times when those words spelled danger. He found at Almack's his most romantic scene, at Ranelagh his terra incognita, in the gardens of Versailles his ideal of the charming and picturesque. Sir George, no exception to the rule, shivered as he looked round. He began to