XVI
Which doth set forth how My Lady Peg, Sir
Percy and Sir Robin all put up at the
“Queen and Artichoke:” and what a
fine hurly-burly thereupon ensues.
The moment that the excitement of the Vicar’s identification had subsided, the Baronet, leading the worthy old man to the gates and there quitting him under pretext of fetching a hackney coach, skipped without, and, hiring one with a couple of the horse-patrol at a squeezing price, jumped in and made off for his inn at Pimlico, leaving his whilom preceptor to shift for himself.
Sir Robin had no mind at all for duels with any one, least of all with the resurrected Sir Percy de Bohun, whom his guilty conscience suspected to be fully cognizant of the author of his attempted assassination. Terrified with all this and, if possible, more so by the accounts he had listened to, right and left, of his valorous and most mysterious name-sake, the little gentleman at once made up his mind as to the course wisest for him to pursue, and forthwith pursued it.
Back to Pimlico, and into bed, shivering betwixt the linen and feathers; up for a toilet of the best and neatest; curling his wig thriftily himself by the fire; a good breakfast; a coach at noon with Kennaston Castle for goal; and himself and his ardent and blissful hopes and beliefs for freight and luggage.
For, not twelve hours since, had not My Lady Peggy’s own emissary, the delightful “Mr. Incognito,” told him that his mistress was leaving for home last night? Nay, had not Peggy herself, with her own lips, said that she started for Kennaston “ere cock-crow”? and whatever could such words mean but that he, the object of her tenderest solicitude, should follow her at once?