“By all means!” responded Gideon. “You will be very crowded in the boot, but you may assist Wragby to guard the prisoner. Mr. Liversedge! I fear you may not quite like it, but you are accompanying me to Reading.”
“On the contrary, sir,” replied Mr. Liversedge affably, “I should be sorry to leave you. Owing to the disaster which has befallen the Bird in Hand I find myself temporarily bereft of the means of subsistence. To be abandoned in this town, where I own no acquaintance, would put me to serious inconvenience. I shall be happy to go with you. Let us hope that we may be more fortunate in Reading than we have been in Hitchin or in Aylesbury!”
But when, at the end of a forty-mile drive over an indifferent road, the curricle reached Reading, Fortune (said Mr. Liversedge) seemed disinclined to smile upon its occupants. The Duke’s erratic trail was lost from the moment of his alighting, with his young companions, from the stage, and an exhausting search of all the inns in the town failed to pick up the scent again. Gideon, who had been driving all day, was tired, and consequently, exasperated; and after drawing blank at the fifth inn said that he was determined to find the Duke, if only for the pleasure of wringing his neck. “What the devil has become of him, and what am I to do now?” he demanded.
Mr. Liversedge, who had been awaiting his moment, said with admirable common-sense: “If, sir, I may venture to make a suggestion, we should now repair to the Crown, which appeared to be a very tolerable house, and bespeak dinner in a private parlour, and beds for the night I shall give myself the pleasure of mixing for you a Potation of which I alone know the secret. It was divulged to me by one of my late employers since deceased, alas!—a gentleman often in need of revivifying cordials. I fancy you will be pleased with it!”
“We must find his Grace!” declared Nettlebed obstinately.
“It will be dark in another hour,” said Gideon. “Damn it, the fellow’s right! We’ll rack up for the night!” He yawned suddenly. “God, I am tired!”
“Leave everything to me, sir!” said Mr. Liversedge graciously. “That man of yours—a worthy enough fellow, I daresay!—is quite unfit to arrange all those little genteel details so necessary to a gentleman’s comfort. In me you may have every confidence!”
“I have no confidence in you at all,” replied Gideon frankly. “I foresee, however, that we shall end by becoming boon-companions! Lead on, you unmitigated scoundrel!”
Chapter XX
Serenely unaware that he was being pursued by two sets of persons in varying degrees of wrath or exasperation, the Duke conveyed his charges to Bath on the stage-coach, without incident. He made no stay in Reading, arriving there with only just enough time to catch the London to Bath coach. He experienced a little difficulty in procuring places at such short notice, but by dint of bribing several interested persons, he secured one inside seat for Belinda, and two outside ones for himself and Tom. Belinda was inclined to cry when she found that she could not sit on the roof, but by a fortunate chance a delicate-looking young gentleman boarded the coach, and took his place inside. He stared at Belinda in such blatant admiration that she at once became cheerful, and spent a very happy journey encouraging his respectful advances. He did not look to be the sort of dashing blade who would endeavour to seduce her with promises of rings and silken gowns, so the Duke, thankful to be spared the embarrassment of her easy tears, handed her in with no more than a mild request that she would refrain from informing her fellow-passengers that she was travelling to Bath under the escort of a very kind gentleman. He then climbed on to the roof to take his seat beside Tom, and resigned himself to a long and uncomfortable journey. Tom, having begged in vain to be allowed to tool the coach, sulked for some few miles, but revived upon recollecting that he had in his pocket a catapult which he had found time to buy in Aylesbury. His skilful handling of this weapon led to a little unpleasantness with an old lady by the roadside, whose fat pug dog was startled into unwonted activity by a pellet in the ribs, but as no one but the Duke had seen Tom aim the catapult, and he seized and pocketed it the instant he realized what Tom was so surreptitiously engaged upon, no one was able to bring the crime home to the culprit.