“Bless me, but my suitor’s in a fine pickle! Lud! though, I’m not disposed to have these hussies a-laying six to four on my bein’ ready to jump at his offer; still, I’d rather he’d stopped over, or else that some one most amusin’ were here; for instance Sir Robin McTart, which is not to be!”
Then a-rapping at the doors, and laughter from girlish lips; pattering of heels down the hall and stair-case; out to meet the gentlemen, bowing and complimenting on the terrace; over the lawns, and through the flower-gardens, and past the offices and stables, where Lord Brookwood, even thus early, was sunning himself in the yard, and talking over county matters with Mr. Biggs, J.P.
“Where to? Where to?” sings out His Lordship cheerily with hat in hand, and Mr. Biggs down to the ground before so much beauty, fashion and rank.
“Off to the copse, father,” calls back Diana, “to gather the May-dew and wash our faces; when we come back you must tell us all how much more beautiful we are to-day than we were yesterday!”
With which lively sally Lady Diana and the rest of ’em are crossing the hill and laughing as they pass out of sight on their two miles’ away walk to Armsleigh Copse.
Lord Brookwood is about to resume his conversation with Biggs, while the half-dozen grinning stable boys, behind His Lordship’s back, are rubbing their fists in the wet turf of a paddock, and smearing their red faces with the dew, the head-groom touching them up with a lash; when a whinny, that sets every animal in the stalls and out of ’em a-replying, sets all the cocks crowing, hens cackling, chicks peeping, dogs barking, geese squawking, smites their startled ears, and yonder, hilly-o-ho! Sirs; in a cloud of upturned soil, in a shower of splash from the river, with a thud on the wooden bridge, a bound over the stone wall of the kitchen garden; comes a black with nigh every tooth in its mouth bared, foaming, smoking, bloody; rider bent double to saddle’s bow, clinging with legs and arms.
“Homing Nell and the highwayman! Tom Kidde! Tom Kidde!”
“Homing Nell!” the shout goes up from every throat there, from His Lordship to the ’ostlers and boys.
“Tom Kidde! Tom Kidde!”
“By Gad! Sir,” cries the Earl. “I knew Nell’d come back sooner or later! Surround him. Bag him!”