“I pray ye, My Lord, Gentlemen, and good fellows!” cries she, remembering now the entire history of the animal she bestrides, as rehearsed some six hours earlier by Beau Brummell and Mr. Vane. “I am no highwayman.”
A groan of derision greets this announcement.
“Nay, but the rather am I the victim of Tom Kidde, than he himself! Together with a party of my friends, being at mid-night last, on the return from a visit to Mr. Brummell’s seat, Ivy Dene, we were set upon by the rogues in the midst of Epstowe Forest; I had the luck, both good and bad, to put a ball into Tom, to get my horse shot under me, and to mount the scoundrel’s steed, the which has brought me to Your Lordship’s door, and the mare, herself, to where she belongs, it seems!”
“A damned fine story, ’fore George!” exclaims Biggs, laughing triumphantly, now holding up two watches, three rings, a diamond snuff-box, a seal, two magnificent pins, and a most splendid jeweled stomacher, high above his head in the tip of the sunshine.
“’Sdeath!” cried Lord Brookwood, seizing one of the trinkets and examining it with his spy-glass. “What’s this? ‘Percy de Bohun, Christmas from his aff. mother,’” reads His Lordship. Then another, “‘Wyatt Lovell souvenir of Italy!’ Gad, Biggs,” looking Her Ladyship over, where she still sits atop of the steaming black, “we’ve got the cursed blackguard this time! What else in his saddle pockets? aught?”
These Biggs, assisted by the head-groom, is energetically emptying of a miscellaneous collection of valuables, while Lady Peggy looks on in amazement as yet only flavored with amusement, and one more vain regret for her abandoned petticoats.
“Yes, My Lord, these thousands of pounds’ worth,” replied the Justice, holding aloft his treasure trove; “and it’ll be a short shrift for the devil, I can say that.”
“Hark ye,” now says Her Ladyship, as she recalls with a not unnatural tremor the death-warrant she had heard was lying to hand in Mr. Biggs’s pocket. “Lord Brookwood, I am no highwayman; my story is true; I am”—the words stuck in Peggy’s throat; she coughed, the stable boys tittered; then the head-groom tilted the saddle and spilled her out of it to the ground; at a word from Biggs, a couple of the men tied her, hand and foot, with a stout rope, and a pair of farming reins about her middle.
“Now who do you call yourself, my fine fellow?” says His Lordship.
“Sir Robin McTart of Robinswold, Kent!” cries Peggy, glad to be able to answer without the lie direct. “And I demand instant freedom and immunity,” cries she, tortured and quivering beneath the rude hands and ruder gibes of the grooms and ’ostlers.