In a trice, Sir Robin is attended to his bower, and ere long the best in the larder is laid before him. Sir Percy partakes of the homely fare of the ordinary; and Her Ladyship sits, unheeding the tardy summons of the dame, supperless, hungry, fagged, in her tiny room where the warmth from the kitchen chimney reaches her, and where the goodly smells from Sir Robin’s fowls, sausages, eggs, and fruit-pie assail her senses. Mr. Grigson, doctoring the roan, endeavored with much creditable tact to get wind of the name or title of the master of the coach, but Sir Robin’s men had had their lesson, and not a hint was to be got out of either of them by Mr. Grigson, or by the curious host of the Queen and Artichoke himself. By eleven every candle was out in the house. All the guests, save two, slept the sleep of the presumably just. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] XVII _Wherein Her Ladyship slips leash of all mankind, runs for her life, and finds goal in the arms of Sir Robin McTart._ These were Peggy and the little Baronet. Her Ladyship, mind made up to flee in the darkness, leaving six-pence on the table to pay for her lodgings, even now stood, latch in hand, bundle once more under arm, still a man, not having dared to change her garments. Sir Robin lay ensconced betwixt the quilts; the realizing sense that his mortal enemy, one who sought his life, who coveted His Lady—from whom he was running away, to be veracious,—lay not many yards off him, seeming to banish that restful repose that had seldom hitherto forsaken this worthy and exemplary little person. A mouse squeaked, and Sir Robin shivered; a beetle pattered across the hearth, his hair stood on end. Surely a footstep sounded in the hallway; the boards creaked; something metallic struck against the panel of his door, and he sprang from his couch and chattered to his sword. Lady Peggy’s blade had struck the woodwork as she made her way stealthily down in the darkness; while Sir Robin shook, she gained the lower end of the hall but, not being acquainted with its ways and turnings, above all, having forgot the two broad steps that cut the straight road to the entrance in two, Her Ladyship, with much clanking of her weapon on the brick flooring, fell sprawling; her bundle shooting off into the unseen, she up on hands and knees, hither, yon, seeking it; Sir Robin beating on his wainscot such a tattoo as was fit to wake the dead, shrieking, from the safe shelter of the muffling pillows where he huddled: “Murder! Thieves! Ho there! Landlord! Tom! James! Ho there, I say! Help! Help!” Sir Percy, out of his four-post up-stairs in a flash, tinder struck, door flung open; in night-rail and cap, with rapier drawn, hanger uplifted, and—