Lady Biddy’s bawl, ’tis true, echoed in the Baronet’s recollection, but ’twas, to his way of thinking merely an index of the liveliness of her disposition and the enchanting coyness of her moods.
He adjusted his wig with a beaming smile, snapped his crooked little fingers at the mere memory of Sir Percy de Bohun, the Vicar, his spurious name-sake, and all the rest of it, as he blithely set off on his amorous quest, at high noon, from the Puffled Hen in Pimlico.
That same morning toward dawn, Percy had ridden home alone, leaving Kennaston, cheered by a smile and a pressure of Lady Diana’s hand, to return to his chambers in Grub street, whither the young poet had removed some few days since from Lark Lane, at the instance of having had a piece of good fortune, in the way of a commendation from no less a personage than the great Doctor Johnson himself.
The reflections of Peggy’s adorer were various and most tormenting; his brain, as he tossed in his bed, was a labyrinth wherein he wandered, vainly endeavoring to solve such riddles as—
“Where was Lady Peggy? Was she indeed the bride of either of the Sir Robins? Who was the comely young gentlemanly rogue who had for weeks bewitched the fair and charmed the brave? Where had he disappeared? To whom, in reality, was he indebted for the saving of his own life at the Dove Pier; and whose were the St. Giles’s hirelings who had near made an end of him there?”
Bewildered and at wits’ end, he finally, as the sun was at meridian, sprang from his uneasy couch, rang and rapped thrice for Grigson, made a sorry pretense at conversing on politics with his uncle, whom he presently encountered in the hall; inwardly cursed the old gentleman; and at last, by three o’clock, got his will, which was, astride of the long roan, Grigson on the black, to cross to the Surrey side of the river, and ride as fast as ever he could to Kennaston Castle.
“By heavens!” cried he to himself, pounding Battersea Bridge. “It is time her father knew, and Her Lady mother too, that she is neither in Kent or anywhere else in their reckoning; and if it puts ’em both into their shrouds, they’ll hear the truth, and set about solving the riddle before sunrise to-morrow. I’m sailing on Thursday for the Colonies, but I go not until I am assured of her safety,—and her happiness.”
Thus it happened that not above three hours after Sir Robin had started from Pimlico with his destination Kennaston, Sir Percy quitted Charlotte Street with the same beacon in view; and each, the one in his coach, t’other in his saddle, brain full and heart bursting with but one thought, and that Lady Peggy Burgoyne.
Her Ladyship meantime, on landing from the wherry, fairly scampered her way to Mr. Brummell’s for fear of desperadoes and Mohocks. At one point wild cries of—
“Watch!” greeted her ears from the open window of a gaming-house; at another a bullet whizzed above her head, the outcome of a duel being fought in a narrow street she traversed. In and out she threaded her path, until presently the pink flush of the dawn pierced the fog into a silvery mist and she had gained the Beau’s threshhold. Passing the sleepy servants, Peggy ran up to her room and once again drew the bundle from its hiding place, tucked the long tail of her dark hair well inside, cast a glance of pitiable amusement about the chamber, and says she, going: