“Demand away! my pretty buck-skin, with your jeweled hilt!” returns Biggs, stripping the weapon from her thigh. “Your satin breeches and gold-laced waistcoat! ’Tain’t no use denyin’ you your speech, and your will to palaver on whatever matter you will, for before the clock strikes eight, you’ll be home with your father in hell.”
“Tut, tut, Mr. Biggs,” says His Lordship. “Call Mr. Frewen, the Curate, he’s at his studies in the library, we havin’ sat late over our cards last night; and let him have his prayer-book to hand, open at the page for malefactors after condemnation.”
“Go, you, Michael,” this to one of the now awestruck lads hanging, staring at Peg over the paddock paling. “Ask Mr. Frewen to come quickly.”
“But this is monstrous, Sir!” cries Her Ladyship, now thoroughly alarmed, and near to losing her wits betwixt her endeavors to keep up her man’s estate, her contempt of her own frowardness, her shame at being thus at the mercy of her rival’s parent, and her actual terror of her position.
“I do beseech you, I am an honest person, my tale is true. Is it not but the justice due to any subject of His Majesty’s, however humble, that he should not be condemned before he is tried, or even his identity proven?”
“I’ll be sworn, My Lord,” exclaims Biggs, “’tis a voice and air to wheedle fine ladies out of their stomachers and chains, but not to tempt the law. Sirrah!” he continues, addressing himself to Her Ladyship, who is by this firmly tied to a post like a colt about to be broken to harness. “’Tain’t no use for you to be imaginin’ as justice and His Majesty ain’t a-doing their best for you. Here have you been a terror to all God-fearing, law-abiding Englishmen any time these half-dozen of years. A-poundin’ every heath in England, Hornslow, Bagshott, and all the commons, Wimbledon, Wandsworth, Finchley; a-hulking in Epstowe with your mates, and making the lives of travelers a burden most horrible; ain’t you secreted uncountable pounds’ worth of plunder in your devilish caves and dens? Haven’t you left the earth strewed with corpses in your ugly path? Answer me, Sir!” and Mr. Biggs stamps his foot on the ground.
“No, Sir!” shouts Peg, “I ain’t and haven’t, and I’m not! ’Slife, My Lord Brookwood,” cries she in a terrible way, twisting her tied hands together. “For God’s sake, send up to town post-haste, and find out Mr. Brummell, Mr. Vane, Mr. Chalmers, Lord Escombe, Sir Lovell Wyatt!”
But His Lordship has turned up the path toward the Castle and met Mr. Frewen, to whom he is explaining the necessities of the situation.
’Tis such a fair May day, with bud and blossom, bough and bird; fowls, men, beasts, all free of tether, and My Lady is like to weep; cry out her sex, her very name and estate, as she feels the gall upon her wrists and ankles, and knows what fate awaits her.
She even, for one weak moment, thinks she will implore Lord Brookwood to send up to London for her rival, his own daughter, Lady Diana, and let her come down and tell him who is Sir Robin McTart—for Lady Peggy believes Lady Di to be in town and has no knowledge to the contrary.