'Yes,' the lawyer answered staunchly; 'that Sir George, if he be going
in pursuit of them, permit me to go with him. I--I can ride, or at least
I can sit on a horse,' Mr. Fishwick continued bravely; 'and I am
ready to go.' 'Oh, la!' said Lady Dunborough, spitting on the floor--for there were
ladies who did such things in those days--'I think they are all in it
together. And the fair cousin too! Cousin be hanged!' she added with a
shrill ill-natured laugh; 'I have heard that before.' But Sir George took no notice of her words. 'Come, if you choose,' he
cried, addressing the lawyer. 'But I do not wait for you. And now,
madam, if your interference is at an end--' 'And what if it is not?' she cried, insolently grimacing in his face.
She had gained half an hour, and it might save her son. To persist
farther might betray him, yet she was loth to give way. 'What if it is
not?' she repeated.
'I go out by the other door,' Sir George answered promptly, and, suiting
the action to the word, he turned on his heel, strode through the crowd,
which subserviently made way for him, and in a twinkling he had passed
through the garden door, with Mr. Fishwick, hat in hand, hurrying at
his heels.
The moment they were gone, the babel, suppressed while the altercation
lasted, rose again, loud as before. It is not every day that the busiest
inn or the most experienced traveller has to do with an elopement, to
say nothing of an abduction. While a large section of the ladies, seated
together in a corner, tee-hee'd and tossed their heads, sneered at Miss
and her screams, and warranted she knew all about it, and had her jacket
and night-rail in her pocket, another party laid all to Sir George,
swore by the viscountess, and quoted the masked uncle who made away with
his nephew to get his estate. One or two indeed--and, if the chronicler
is to be candid, one or two only, out of as many scores--proved that
they possessed both imagination and charity. These sat apart, scared and
affrighted by their thoughts; or stared with set eyes and flushed faces
on the picture they would fain have avoided. But they were young and had
seen little of the world.
On their part the men talked fast and loud, at one time laughed, and at
another dropped a curse--their form of pity; quoted the route and the
inns, and weighed the chances of Devizes or Bath, Bristol or Salisbury;
vaguely suggested highwaymen, an old lover, Mrs. Cornelys' ballet; and
finally trooped out to stand in the road and listen, question the
passers-by, and hear what the parish constable had to say of it. All
except one very old man, who kept his seat and from time to time
muttered, 'Lord, what a shape she had! What a shape she had!' until he
dissolved in maudlin tears.