Yet, there in the stable-yard, with imprisonment as she supposes, and even death dangling for her at no great loss of time, with her liberty gone; her word no better than a thief’s; with no earthly hand upraised to sustain her, My Lady Peggy’s stout heart does not flutter to dismay. For that one brief instant ’tis, without doubt, in her mind to confess and fling herself upon the mercy of the Earl and the Curate, who now draw nigh; but when she reflects upon the monstrous tissue of her deceits, and the unutterable shame of the exposure of the cause of them, ’tis then she is like to whimper, but for naught else.
Mr. Frewen approaches; ’tis a young man of a pale cadaverous countenance, whose first bow to a highwayman is indeed, though he find him in durance vile, a timid one.
The supposed Tom Kidde gives the man of the cloth eye for eye, so that this one quails and stumbles in his speech; and finally, leaving in the rear all his preconceived plans for a hasty reformation, he promptly remarks, opening his prayer-book to the riband:
“You know your doom, Mr. Kidde; shall I pray for you here?”
“Faith!” says Lady Peggy, plucking up heart, once her resolution is taken not to reveal her secret, come what may. “I do not know my doom, Sir! It seems sufficient ‘doom’ for an honest English gentleman, who has met with a mishap, to be brought to a nobleman’s threshold and get foul treatment rather than welcome. Pray for me, Sir, an you will, there’s none so much deserves or needs it. Pray on!”
“Frewen!” beckons His Lordship, as he watches the ’ostlers rubbing down the restored Homing Nell, and confers with Mr. Biggs as to the plunder and the meting out of justice. “Frewen, gain the wretch’s confidence an you can, the whereabouts of all the gold and jewels he has stolen; my watch. And also, if he have wife or child, it might not be amiss, eh, Biggs? to inquire if he have any message for them?”
“Aye, My Lord” puts in the pompous Biggs, up-looking from his perusal of a long, sealed, important-appearing parchment, unrolled before his eyes. “By ascertaining their whereabouts, we should perhaps get the clue to all the bloody rascal’s pelf.”
A combination of Christian charity and official shrewdness, which commended itself highly to His Lordship, as he sent the Curate back to the comforting of the malefactor across the yard.
“Hark ye, Mr. Kidde,” says Mr. Frewen, lowering his voice, and, for the credit of his soul, with gentleness at his heartstrings.
“I’m not Mr. Kidde, I tell you, I swear’t!” says Her Ladyship firmly.