George W. Gough

“ When a raw youth leaves farming for knight-erranting he must expect sharp turns and rough tumbles, but surely Fate and Fortune were overdoing it now. It was the Colonel beyond doubt, and Margaret had limned him to the life. The hawk-eyes, the hook nose, the leathery skin, the orange-tawny campaign-wig with the grizzled hair peeping under the rim of it, the tall, thin, supple figure, all were there. And if I had been in any doubt of it, Sultan would have settled the matter, for his pleasure at finding his master was delightful to witness. ”

“ Jonadab Kilroot had found his way across the Atlantic into Boston Harbour much more easily than I was finding mine across London to Master Freake's house in Queen Anne's Gate. It was after nine at night, at which late hour, of course, I did not intend to arouse the inmates, but I meant to find the place so that I could stand outside and imagine Margaret within, perchance dreaming of me. At last I observed that men with torches were clearly being used as guides through this black maze of streets, and I stopped one such and offered him a guinea to do his office for me. ”

“ Did ever man enjoy such fat luck as mine? I had been as hard beset as a nut in the nutcrackers. To prove that I was not Swift Nicks I should have to prove that I was Oliver Wheatman. The Bow Street runner would see to that, for, as Swift Nicks, I was worth fifty guineas to him, a sum of money for which he would have hanged half the parish without a twinge. Cross or pile, I should lose the toss. Drive away the cart! Such had been my thoughts, and now a lad's young pride had snatched me out of danger. ”

“ As wealth went then, the Marquess of Tiverton was, by his own fault and foolishness, a poorish man, but he was lost in love of her, and he was only one of the many exquisites who were for ever in and out of Master Freake's fine mansion. It did not become a Wheatman of the Hanyards to cringe or be abashed in any company, and with the best of them I kept on terms of ease and intimacy. I dressed as well, and perchance looked as well, as they did, and if my accomplishments differed from theirs they differed for the better in Margaret's eyes, which were the only eyes that mattered. ”

“ No words can paint her as she stood in the dim-lit passage, the infinite sum of womanhood, peerless in every grace and gift; not now the tense, proud Margaret of the quick rebuke and the shattering sarcasm, but the mirthful, trustful, grateful companion of our boy-and-girl escapade.
"I think you're right, madam," said I. "Bloggs, dear old chap, flogged the meaning of Virgil into me, but I wish he had flogged in some of the meaning of life along with it. I feel as helpless as Saul would have felt with David's sling and stones." ”

“ I am busy, too; busy as I love best of all to be. For on my knee, her arms round my neck and her great mane of glorious wheat-coloured hair tickling my face, is the dearest little creature on God's earth, my other Margaret. If you want to see me when I am intensely proud and happy, you must see me with her at my side walking in the Park or down the Green Gate at Stafford, with all eyes turning on her because of her surpassing childish beauty. ”

“ The thousand and more acres of the Upper Hanyards, sweet meadows stretching a mile along the river and a snatch of the chase at its wildest and loveliest, the prize that had fallen to the rascal earl in the great lawsuit, had been promised me as readily as a pinch of snuff. I gloated over the revenge I was winning for my race, a race rooted in those darling Hanyards a century before the Ridgeleys were heard of, for the first earl, the grandfather of the old rogue, started as an obscure pimp to Charles the Second, and was enriched and ennobled for his assiduity. ”

“ Speech was useless, and action not yet possible. That keen swordsman's eye must be diverted somehow. There was a God in heaven, and the rabbit-stew would be ready soon. It was useless to attempt to force matters. And as for his taunts, well, he was but feathering my arrows. So I sat on like a stone.
"Go, Master Wheatman," she urged faintly, but I did not even turn to look at her. My heart was thumping on my ribs, my nerves tingling, my muscles involuntarily tightening for a spring.
"These yokels are so dull and lifeless, Margaret. He cannot understand our impatience." ”

“ It was easy to see that Margaret, for all her grey domino, was the mistress of the gay, courtly group; easy, too, to catch the meaning of the eyes the stranger ladies made at one another as they noted with amusement the young Chief's infatuation. Well, he was there, and I was here, by right. I said so to myself very savagely, that there should be no mistake about it, but I must admit to a sour taste in my mouth as I pushed into a passing group of clansmen, and then dodged behind a clump of ammunition wagons, and so got into a side-alley unseen by those searching eyes. ”

“ I re-filled the goblet and handed it to Jane, saying, "Drink, Jane, to madam's good luck."
The honest girl blushed with joy at my words, and as for drinking wine out of the famous silver goblet of the Hanyards--such a distinction, as she conceived it, was reward enough for anything.
"Thanks are payment all too poor for what you have done, sir," said madam, "and any words of mine would make them poorer still. But, sir, I do thank you most heartily. And you, too, Jane, have done me splendid service. You are as brave and clever as you are bonny and pretty." ”

“ In hot blood I did not mind a pistol, and in the coldest blood I could easily have kicked loose from the men who had got hold of me. But Margaret kept my limbs idle and my mouth shut. There was no real danger, for that matter, unless Margaret and Master Freake failed to turn up at the "Rising Sun," and there was no reason to suppose they would fail. ”

“ He was puffing away at his pipe, long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the fire in a brown study.
"Well, Margaret and Oliver," said Master Freake, "this is no time to be giving you lessons in the way the great world wags that neither knows nor cares of outs and ins and party shufflings, but is busy with rents and crops, and incomings and outgoings, and debts and credits, and wivings and thrivings. But, believe me, in being anxious to know who is going to win, I am as plainly and simply doing my duty as is the Colonel who is going to do his best to help his Prince to win. ”

“ From the bridge at the Hanyards onwards, Mistress Waynflete had always acted promptly and exactly to my wish. I felt a boor, and was in truth a boor, in comparison with her. Brocton's 'yokel blood' gibe had put murder into my blows, but it had truth enough in it to make it rankle like a poisoned arrow. Yet here was this wonder-woman, trustful as a child and meeker than a milkmaid. My work was new, but at any rate I had sometimes dreamed that I could do a man's work when I got my chance, and I had limbs of leather and steel to do it with. ”

“ That he should fall in love with Margaret was natural, and had she fallen in love with him I should not have been surprised. Even after the event, I still say that he was a fine, upstanding man, delightful to look on, and, so far as I knew, worthy of any woman, even of such a one as Margaret. But the heart is master not servant, and cannot be commanded. She loved him not and there was an end of it.
Next, Lady Ogilvie hinted at danger to me from him. Well, if he wanted a fight, a fight he should have. ”

“ The sergeant fled into and through the inn and, with the men from the corridor, got clean away. Not a man else escaped. Half the dragoons on the wagon were picked off like crows on a branch. The rest, and those in or about the yard, got their lives and nothing else barring their breeches, and that not for comeliness' sake but because they were useless. Every man jack of them, in less than five minutes, looked like a half-plucked cockerel, and their captors were wrangling like jackdaws about the plunder. ”

“ He replaced it on his head, drew his rapier, with quick turns of his wrist swished the supple blade through the air till it sang, then flashed it out at me like the tongue of an adder, and said, "Sit you still, Farmer Wheatman, sit you still. Move but your hand and I spit you like a lark on a skewer. So, little man, so!"
The contempt in his words stirred the gall in my liver, but I neither spoke nor shifted, and he continued, addressing her, but with cold, amused eyes fixed on me, "You see, sweet Margaret, how yokel blood means yokel mood. Your turnip-knight freezes at the sight of steel." ”

“ She spoke easily and lightly. "How small the world must be since it cannot find room for me to avoid you!"
"Say rather, dear mistress, that my love draws me unerringly towards you."
"I thought I gathered that there was another motive for your coming here to-night."
"Margaret, believe me, I am distraught," he said, not wholly in mockery it seemed to me.
"So distraught, it seems, that you neglect your plainest duty as an officer in order to corrupt, if you can, a supposed country maiden, of whom you have heard by chance. His Grace of Cumberland will be glad to hear of such devotion." ”

“ I deal with business problems only, which are all cut and dry, legal and formal. When I make a promise in the way of business I always keep it precisely and punctually, for the penalty of failure to do so is a business man's death--bankruptcy."
"There's such a thing as moral bankruptcy," said Sir James gloomily.
"Very likely," replied Master Freake.
"This is all nothing whatefer but words, words, words," said the Welshman. "And words, my goot sirs, are indeed no goot whatefer. Sir James's head is wrapped up in a mist of words, words, words, and indeed he cannot see anything whatefer. ”

“ Some one laughed at the explanation, and Donald, still explaining, pushed open the door and made way for Margaret, who, before I could rise, was glowering over me, in the delightful way she had, girlish pretence just dashed with womanly earnest.
"I shall never forgive you, nor father, nor Donald, nor anybody else. And you're not to move, sir!"
"I'm sorry, madam," said I.
"You always are. It's your favourite mood. You live on sorrow," she said, pelting me with the terse, sharp sentences. ”

“ Once or twice we met a man who cried, "What's up?" and at the response, "Swift Nicks," he added himself to the procession and was regaled, as he trudged along, with an account of the affray at the inn. My capture was exceedingly popular, and they gloated to my face over the doom in store for me, wrangling like rooks as to the likeliest spot for my gibbet. The majority fixed it at the Copt Oak, where, as they reminded me with shrill curses, I had murdered poor old Bet o' th' Brew'us for a shilling and sixpence. It was a relief to hear the host shout to Master Wicks, "Yon's th' Squire's!" ”

“ By the Colonel's orders, Margaret, on Sultan, took her place between us, heading for the open country, while he and I turned to the road. The thin, straggling pine-branches cast but little shadow, and I knew it was next to impossible for us to pass unnoticed.
"Now, Madge," said the Colonel, "it's bound to come to a fight. As soon as the fun begins, off you go like the wind into this bog-hole in front of you, and in five minutes you'll be out of danger. Make a detour round to the road again, keep the moon behind your back, and push on to the nearest inn. ”