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

“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.

Another point that stood out strongly against Lord Farquhart – a point that was weighing heavily in public opinion – was that since the night of Lady Barbara’s arrival in London, since which time Lord Farquhart had been obliged to be in close attendance upon his cousin, there had been no hold ups by this redoubtable highwayman. The men who had attacked Lindley and the player’s lad had been but bungling robbers of the road. That they could have had any connection with the robbery of the Lady Barbara, or with the other dashing plays of the Black Devil, had been definitely disproved.

So all of Farquhart’s friends were weighed down with apprehension of the fate in store for him, whether he was guilty or not. The only hope lay in Lord Grimsby, the old man who had been convinced that the highwayman was in league with the devil, if he was not the devil himself; the old man whose only son had vowed to take to the road if the Black Highwayman met his fate at his father’s hands. But the hopes that were based on the demon-inspired terror, and the paternal love of Lord Grimsby, seemed faint, indeed, to Lindley as he rode toward London that night.

XVII

Lindley was first at the tryst in London, but Johan soon slipped from the shadow of Master Timothy Ogilvie’s gateway.

“I can stop but a moment,” he whispered, nervously. “I must not be seen here. My – my master must not know that I – I am abroad in London.”

“And Mistress Judith?” questioned Lindley. “Have you seen her? Is she still here? Is she well?”

“I have seen Mistress Judith for a moment only,” answered the lad. “She is well enough, but she is worn out with the care of her cousin, Lady Barbara, and she is sadly dispirited, too.”

“’Tis a pity Lady Barbara cannot die,” muttered Lindley, “after the confusion she’s gotten Lord Farquhart into. A sorry mess she’s made of things.”

“The poor girl – ” Johan shuddered. “Mistress Judith says the poor girl is in desperate straits, does naught but cry and sob, and vows she loves Lord Farquhart better than her life.”

“Ay, she may well be in desperate straits,” shrugged Lindley. “And she’ll be in worse ones when she finds she’s played a goodly part in hanging an innocent man!”

“Hanging!” Johan’s exclamation was little more than a shrill, sharp cry.

“Ay, hanging, I said,” answered Lindley. “What other fate does she think is in store for Lord Farquhart?”

“But – but this Lord Farquhart is a friend of yours, too, is he not, Master Lindley?” The boy’s question was slow and came after a long silence.

“Yes, a good friend and an honest man, if ever there was one,” answered Lindley.

“An – an honest man!” Johan shuddered again. “That’s it, an honest man he is, isn’t he?”

“As honest as you or I!” Lindley’s thoughts were so preoccupied that he hardly noticed his companion’s agitation.

“But there must be some way of escape,” Johan whispered, after another silence. “Some way to save him! If nothing else, some way to effect his escape!”

“Nay, I see no way,” gloomed Lindley.

In the darkness Johan crept closer to Lindley.