Stories by English Authors: England | Page 9

fault, they will tell you where my father is; where," he added, bitterly,
"they are worse than I am, and yet, oh, so respectable."
"You turned highwayman to--to--"
"To spite them, say. It is very near the truth."
"It will be a poor excuse to the mother, when you see her again."
"Eh?"
But Sophie had no time to continue so abstruse a subject with this
misanthropical freebooter. She clapped her hand to her side and gave a
little squeak of astonishment.
"What is the matter?" asked Captain Guy.

"My keys! They have taken my keys."
And, sure enough, while Sophie Tarne had been talking to the captain,
some one had severed the keys from her girdle and made off with them,
and there was only a clean-cut black ribbon dangling at her waist
instead.
"That villain Stango," exclaimed the captain "I saw him pass a minute
ago. He leaned over and whispered to you, Kits. You remember?"
"Stango?" said Kits, with far too innocent an expression to be genuine.
"Yes, Stango; you know he did."
"I dare say he did. I don't gainsay it, Captain, but I don't know where he
has gone."
"But I will know," cried the captain, striking his hand upon the table
and making every glass and plate jump thereon. "I will have no tricks
played here without my consent. Am I your master, or are you all
mine?"
And here, we regret to say, Captain Guy swore a good deal, and
became perfectly unheroic and inelegant and unromantic. But his oaths
had more effect upon his unruly followers than his protests, and they
sat looking at him in a half-sullen, half-shamefaced manner, and would
have probably succumbed to his influence had not attention been
diverted and aroused by the reappearance of Stango, who staggered in
with four or five great black bottles heaped high in his arms. A
tremendous shout of applause and delight heralded his return to the
parlour.
"We have been treated scurvily, my men," cried Stango, "exceedingly
scurvily; the best and strongest stuff in the cellar has been kept back
from us. It's excellent--I've been tasting it first, lest you should all be
poisoned; and there's more where this come from--oceans more of it!"
"Hurrah for Stango!"

The captain's voice was heard once more above the uproar, but it was
only for a minute longer. There was a rush of six men toward Stango; a
shouting, scrambling, fighting for the spirits which he had discovered; a
crash of one black bottle to the floor, with the spirit streaming over the
polished boards, and the unceremonious tilting over of the upper part of
the supper-table in the ruffians' wild eagerness for drink.
"To horse, to horse, men! Have you forgotten how far we have to go?"
cried the captain.
But they had forgotten everything, and did not heed him. They were
drinking strong waters, and were heedless of the hour and the risks they
ran by a protracted stay there. In ten minutes from that time Saturnalia
had set in, and pandemonium seemed to have unloosed its choicest
specimens They sang, they danced, they raved, they blasphemed, they
crowed like cocks, they fired pistols at the chimney ornaments, they
chased the maidservants from one room to another, they whirled round
the room with Mrs. Tarne and Mrs. Pemberthy, they would have made
a plunge at Sophie Tarne for partner had not the captain, very white and
stern now, stood close to her side with a pistol at full cock in his right
hand.
"I shall shoot the first man down who touches you," he said, between
his set teeth.
"I will get away from them soon. For heaven's sake--for mine--do not
add to the horror of this night, sir," implored Sophie.
He paused.
"I beg your pardon," he said, in a low tone of voice, "but--but I am
powerless to help you unless I quell these wolves at once. They are
going off for more drink."
"What is to be done?"
"Can you sing, Mistress Pemberthy?"

"Yes, a little; at least, they say so," she said, blushing at her own
self-encomium.
"Sing something--to gain time. I will slip away while you are singing,
and get the horses round to the front door. Do not be afraid."
"Gentlemen," he cried, in a loud voice, and bringing the handle of his
pistol smartly on the head of the man nearest to him to emphasise his
discourse, "Mistress Pemberthy will oblige the company with a song.
Order and attention for the lady!"
"A song! a song!" exclaimed the highwaymen, clapping their hands and
stamping their heels upon the floor. And then, amid the pause which
followed, Sophie Tarne began a plaintive little ballad in a sweet,
tremulous voice, which gathered strength as she proceeded.
It was a strange