"From twenty to thirty miles," answered Katerfelto. "His lordship travels in a light coach with six good horses. You had better not overtake him till to-morrow night. But these details I confide to your own wisdom and discernment. In this purse are a hundred guineas. In that cupboard a saddle, bridle, and brace of pistols. Spend the money, founder the horse, use the weapons at your discretion, but the warrants must be in the fire before his lordship crosses the borders of Somerset, and the gentlemen named in them must be warned, at all risks of life and death."

"I understand," said John Garnet, "though I do not yet see how to set about the job."

"It can be done in three ways," observed Katerfelto. "The warrants will be carefully looked after. To put them in your own pocket, you must corrupt the servants, make love to my lady, or rob my lord."

John Garnet considered a moment before he answered. "I think the best plan will be to rob my lord."

CHAPTER VIII.

A HEAVY STAKE.

The travellers spent their first night agreeably enough. The weather was fine, the inn at Hounslow roomy and luxurious. My lady seemed pleased with the fresh eggs, the country cream. My lord found amus.e.m.e.nt in the airs and graces of his hostess, who was more than flattered by the notice of so fine a gentleman. Even the servants were good enough to express approval of the ale, the lodging, and the change. Our whole party started next morning in good humour, and the very waiting-maid, who had been in tears for the first six miles out of London, protested that under certain conditions the country might be almost tolerable.

My lord's first footman, a stout high-coloured personage in charge of the blunderbuss, was unremitting in his attentions, and Mistress Rachel, as she was called, in the absence of higher game, condescended to receive his homage with the favour five-and-forty shows to five-and-twenty. At a subsequent period indeed she declared "he hadn't the heart of a hen!" but for the present seemed satisfied to accept him as he was.

Such a favourable state of things could not be expected to last four-and-twenty hours. At noon of the second day it began to rain, a trace broke, a horse cast a shoe, the man with the blunderbuss proved useless in a difficulty, Mistress Rachel grew despondent, my lady sulked, my lord swore, the unwieldy vehicle creaked, groaned, swung, and finally stopped in the middle of a hill.

"Let me out!" screamed Lady Bellinger, whose nervous system was of the weakest, and on whose temper fear had an exasperating effect. "I'd rather walk. I _will_ get out, I'll go back,--Richard!--Robin! open the door."

"Don't be a fool!" exclaimed my lord, as the carriage got into motion once more. "How can you go back, Ellen? You're forty miles from London if you're a yard."

My lady's head-dress vibrated with anger. "I am a fool indeed," she replied, "or I shouldn't be here! And this is the reward of my devotion as a wife. This is your return for my accompanying you into exile. Lord Bellinger, I _will_ speak. Indifference I am accustomed to. Unkindness I have put up with for many a long day, patient, and forbearing, while my heart was broke, but I have a spirit ("you have indeed," muttered his lordship), though you try your best to crush it, and ill-usage I will submit to no longer."

It is possible her husband might have entered a more energetic protest than the "d--d nonsense" he whispered under his breath, but that his attention was diverted at this juncture to the beauty and action of a horse pa.s.sing at a gallop, ridden by a young man whose seat and bearing did justice to the animal he bestrode. When Lord Bellinger, who thrust himself half out of the carriage to follow the pair with his eyes, subsided into his seat, he had forgotten all about their dispute in this new excitement; my lady, however, with her face buried in a handkerchief, continued to sob at intervals, till they reached their destination for the night.

This was a comfortable hostelry enough, yet lacking many of the luxuries that rendered the inn at Hounslow so agreeable a resting-place. Mistress Rachel, alighting with a hand on the shoulder of her admirer, expressed alarm lest it might be tenanted by ghosts; whereat the latter's comely cheek turned pale, while he resolved incontinently to fortify his courage with beer. The new arrivals had no reason to complain of their reception. The servants were amply regaled in the kitchen, a good supper was served for my lord and my lady in the parlour. The choicer meal vanished in profound silence, which Lord Bellinger tried more than once to break; but, finding his efforts ineffectual, and knowing by experience the obstinacy of his wife's reserve when she was "out of spirits," he gave up the attempt, and applied himself to the Burgundy his host brought in person. He finished the bottle as her ladyship, in dignified silence, retired to bed; and ringing the bell for another, felt creeping over him the accustomed longing for cards, dice, company--some excitement in which to spend the evening.

"Landlord," said he, as that stout and stolid personage entered the room with a cobwebbed bottle and a corkscrew, "can you play picquet?"

The landlord smiled foolishly. He did not know what his lordship was driving at.

"Fetch a pack of cards," continued my lord, "and I will teach you."

The landlord excused himself in considerable alarm. "It was too much honour," he said; "he doubted he was too old to learn. Would his lordship like a toast of bread and an olive with his wine?"

"I had rather deal than drink," answered Lord Bellinger, "though I'm in the humour for both. If there's n.o.body in the house to play a game at whist or ombre, send round to the stable, and tell the ostler I will try my luck with him at all-fours."

The landlord stared; but a bright thought struck him, and he observed: "There's a gentleman in the Sunflower who arrived this afternoon. He looks like a gentleman who wouldn't object to a game of cards, or anything in that way."

"Bravo, Boniface," was the answer. "Carry him my respects--Lord Bellinger's respects--with a bottle of your best, and say, if he is at leisure I shall be happy to wait on him at once."

The landlord delivered his message with alacrity, and in less than five minutes John Garnet answered it in person at his lordship's door. He had come to this hostelry for the very purpose of obtaining the introduction he now found so easy; and rather regretted the amount of thought he had wasted after supper in considering how he should make Lord Bellinger's acquaintance, and gain his confidence sufficiently to betray it. With his best bow and pleasantest smile, "plain John Garnet" stood on the threshold, and a.s.sured the other that no consideration would have induced him to permit his lordship to ascend to the Sunflower till he had himself come down to conduct him upstairs, if he would so far honour his humble apartment, where he would at once direct preparations to be made for the reception of his n.o.ble visitor.

"Zounds, man!" answered the other, who at this period of the evening was seldom disposed to stand on ceremony, "we want nothing but a bottle of Burgundy and a pack of cards. They are both on that table. Let us sit down at once and make the most of our time."

"Agreed," replied his guest; "and your lordship shall choose the game and the stakes."

"What say you to picquet?" asked the n.o.bleman, opening the Burgundy, "Ten guineas a game. Twenty--fifty, if you like?"

John Garnet, reflecting that he knew nothing of his adversary's force, and was himself no great performer, modestly chose the lowest stake, and proceeded to play his hand with as much care as his own preoccupation and the strange position in which he found himself permitted. Picquet is a game requiring, no less than skill and practice, undivided attention.

John Garnet could not forbear glancing about the room for some symptoms of the doc.u.ments he desired to make his own; wondering if they were kept in his lordship's pockets, in her ladyship's baggage, under charge of the servants. It is not surprising that at the end of the first game he found himself the better by two gla.s.ses of moderate Burgundy, and the worse by ten golden pieces stamped with the image of King George. He ventured a second game, and with the same result.

To do Lord Bellinger justice, he was not a rapacious gambler. He loved winning well enough, but would rather lose heavily than not play at all.

"I am too strong for you," said he; "I ought to have told you picquet is my especial game."

But when did a loser ever admit the superiority of an adversary's skill?

"Your lordship held good cards," answered John Garnet; "my luck is the likelier to turn. I call for a fresh pack."

So the waiter was summoned, and more cards, with another bottle of wine, were brought in. Lord Bellinger began to feel the old wild impulses rising in his heart; and John Garnet, a desperate man, bound on a desperate errand, had no disinclination to venture Katerfelto's money in an undertaking that compromised his own head.

After two more games, Lord Bellinger had won a hundred guineas; and John Garnet was at the end of his resources.

"My lord," said he, "a man does not journey a-horseback with the Bank of England in his pocket. I have lost to your lordship as much as I can afford to pay."

He spoke with some ill-humour, and rose from the table as though to take his leave.

"One more game," pleaded Lord Bellinger, who would have paid his last guinea rather than go to bed before midnight. "Sit down again, my good sir; if we cannot play for money, we can play for money's worth."

John Garnet obeyed, with a forced smile. To be a good loser was considered one of the essentials in the character of a gentleman; and he would have sunk in his own, no less than in his companion's esteem, had he declined the unequal contest for so paltry an excuse as want of means.

"That is a fine horse you rode here," continued his lordship, shuffling the cards. "If you like to put a price on him, I will stake the sum named against the animal."

"Five hundred!" answered John Garnet.

"Agreed," said the other, though the five hundred guineas he had borrowed from Katerfelto const.i.tuted all the funds he possessed in the world.

So they played one more game, and again Fortune smiled on Lord Bellinger, who emptied his gla.s.s with a smack, having despoiled his adversary of the grey horse and one hundred guineas in gold.

It seemed an unpromising beginning, but John Garnet's courage rose with the exigencies of his position. He pulled a purse from his pocket, and counted down on the table one hundred guineas, piece by piece, with a good-humoured smile.

"No doubt," said he, "your lordship will give me my revenge at some future time. I shall leave the horse in charge of your lordship's servants to-morrow morning. I can pledge you my word he is as good as he looks."

"What do you call him?" asked the other, carelessly.

"Katerfelto," answered John Garnet, taken by surprise, and blurting out the word that first occurred to him, because it would have seemed so strange to hesitate at the name of his own horse.

Lord Bellinger started. "Do _you_ know Katerfelto?" said he. "I have always believed that man must be the devil in person!"

"I got the horse with that name," answered John Garnet, "and his new owner can alter it at pleasure; but as I must be a-foot, literally a-foot, early to-morrow morning, I will now take my leave, and wish your lordship good-night."

So, with many profound bows, the pair separated, and the loser, to his extreme disgust, heard Lord Bellinger's door carefully locked on the inside.