“’Tis no young gentleman, you rogues, ’tis My Lady Peggy Burgoyne, my bride that is to be. Wait a moment, Thomas, while I spread this shawl; and James, look you sharp behind us, for there’s a gentleman in pursuit of this Lady would kill me on sight if he can.” [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] XVIII _In the which Sir Percy steals a coach and four and the living contents thereof and makes off therewith at breakneck speed for life and death._ At this very moment, two horsemen, sorry mounted enough, especially the master, are rounding the turn of the woodland path and about to emerge upon the open next the heath. He who rides the lame roan has his eyes bent upon the ground, a thousand sad and conflicting thoughts crowding his brain, as ’tis impossible even to urge his hurt steed, and a jog-trot is all that can be got out of her ever again. Garratt Lane had sent him away only with his own again. “Sir Percy, with submission, Sir,” exclaims Grigson, “this be Farnham Heath, Sir, and, ’pon my life, Sir!” jumping from his saddle and darting to the grassy side of the way, “a rapier, Sir Percy!” picking it up and dragging with it the straggling bed-cord and its appending bundle. Percy leaped to the ground and seized the weapon. “Grigson!” cried he, “there’s been foul work hereabouts. This is the sword of a gentleman I know, or my name’s not Percy de Bohun! He is a scurvy fellow, and my enemy, but if he has fallen among thieves, by the heaven above us! I’ll rescue him, even if ’tis to punish him later according to my own will. Take the rapier.” As he hands it back to his man, the bed-cord from the Queen and Artichoke, being a full century old, gives entirely away and My Lady Peggy’s duds, long tail of dark hair, pins, needles, whatever else beside, fall, scatter, topsy-turvy to the ground, and at the very same moment Percy sees before him, as in a nest among the sedges and ferns of the marshy brookland, the wig that Her Ladyship had flung off, and a scrap of tumbled paper addressed to himself, flapping, spiked on a thistle-top near it! Thunderstruck, he is about to read it, when Grigson, who has gone on afoot a few steps, starts back, and, reckless of all things, seizes his master’s arm and drags him to the turn of the road. “Sir Percy! Hist! For the love of God, Sir, look!”