‘Did you say that he missed his shot?’ demanded the Duke.
The landlord reluctantly admitted that he had said this, and the Duke, wasting no more time with him, went up to his room to inspect his guns. As he had suspected, one was missing from the case. A quick inspection showed that Tom had taken the pistol which had never been loaded. The box containing powder and ball did not seem to have been tampered with, rather strangely. The Duke collected his fast dwindling capital from the locked drawer in his dressing-table, and sallied forth to see what could be done to extricate Tom from his predicament. Just as he was about to leave the inn he bethought him of his other protégé, and turned to ask the landlord where she was.
‘She went away with Mr Clitheroe,’ replied the landlord simply.
The Duke took a moment to assimilate this piece of information. Nothing in Belinda’s artless prattle had led him to foresee the introduction of a Mr Clitheroe into his life. A happy thought occurred to him; he said quickly: ‘Did Mr Clitheroe quite lately marry a Miss Street?’
‘Mr Clitheroe ain’t married at all, nor likely to be,’ answered the landlord. ‘He’s an old Quaker gentleman, as lives with his sister, Ickleford way.’
As it seemed to him most improbable that an old Quaker gentleman should have offered Belinda either a ring to put on her finger, or a purple silk dress, the Duke was now totally at a loss. The landlord, staring fixedly at a point above his head, added in an expressionless voice: ‘Mr Clitheroe don’t nowise hold with town bucks seducing of innocent young females – by what he told me.’
The Duke allowed this aspersion upon his character to pass without remonstrance. It seemed reasonable to suppose that Belinda had fallen into safe hands; and a faint hope that one at least of his charges was provided for began to burgeon in his breast. He set forth to find the local Round-house.
It was one of Lord Lionel’s maxims that every man, however wealthy, should be able on all occasions to fend for himself; and to this end he had had his ward taught such useful things as how to shoe a horse, and how to clean his own guns. Unfortunately he had never foreseen that Gilly might one day stand in need of instruction on the right methods to employ in dealing with constables and magistrates. Apart from a vague notion that one applied for bail, the Duke had no idea of what he ought to do to procure Tom’s release; but although this would have seriously daunted him a week earlier his horizon had lately been so much broadened that he embarked on his task with a surprising amount of assurance.
This assurance stood him in good stead with the constable, whom he found in charge at the Round-house. The constable, an elderly man of comfortable proportions, treated him with an instinctive deference which was only slightly shaken by the disclosure that he was responsible for the young varmint locked up in No. 2 cell. He did indeed look reproachfully at the Duke, and say that it was a serious business which would end in Tom’s being committed for trial, but since he added there was never any knowing what devilment such pesky lads would engage in, the Duke was encouraged to hope that he knew enough about boys not to regard Tom’s exploit in too lurid a light.
He sat down on one of the benches, and laid his hat on the table. ‘Well, now,’ he said, smiling up at the constable, ‘will you tell me just what happened? I have heard what sounds to me a pack of nonsense, from the landlord of the Sun. He is plainly a foolish fellow, and I should prefer to listen to a sensible man.’
‘Now there,’ said the constable, warming to him, ‘you are in the right of it, sir! You might truss up Mr Moffat’s wit in an eggshell. Not but what this young varmint has gone for to commit a felony, no question. I’ll have to take him up to Mr Oare’s place this morning, him being a magistrate, and Mr Stalybridge laying a charge against him, as he is entitled to do.’
The Duke perceived that since Tom had not yet been haled before the magistrate his task must be to induce Mr Stalybridge to withdraw the charge against him. He said: ‘Where did all this happen?’
‘It was last night, just after dusk,’ said the constable. ‘A matter of a mile outside the town on the road to Stevenage. There was Mr Stalybridge, a-riding in his carriage, with his man sitting up beside the coachman, him having been on a visit, you see, when up jumps this young varmint of yours out of nowhere, on a horse which he hires from Jem Datchet – which I am bound to say he paid Jem for honest, else Jem would never have let him take the nag, him being one of them as lives in a gravel-pit, as the saying is. And he up and shouts out, Stand and deliver! quite to the manner born, and looses off this pop of his, which fair scorches the ear off Mr Stalybridge’s coachman, according to what he tells me. Well, not to wrap it up in clean linen, sir, Mr Stalybridge was scared for his life, and he had out his purse, and his gold watch, and all manner of gewgaws for to hand over to this young varmint, when his man, which is not one as has more hair than wit, slips off of the box when no one ain’t heeding him, and has your young varmint off of Jem Datchet’s nag just as he’s about to take Mr Stalybridge’s purse. I will say the lad is a proper fighter, for he put in a deal of cross-and-jostle work, but betwixt the lot of them they had him overpowered, and brought him in here, and give him over to me, as is proper. Ah, and he had both his daylights darkened, but Mr Stalybridge’s man he had had his cork drawn, so that it was wunnerful to see how the claret did flow! And once he found himself under lock and key, would he open his mummer? Not he! Downright sullen, that’s what he be now, and won’t give his name, nor where he lives, nor nothing!’
‘I daresay he is frightened,’ said the Duke. ‘He is only fifteen, you know.’
‘You don’t say!’ marvelled the constable. ‘Well, I did use to think my own boys was well-growed lads, but if that don’t beat all.’
‘I thought you had boys of your own,’ said the Duke softly. ‘Full of mischief too, I daresay?’
He had struck the right note. The constable beamed upon him, and enunciated: ‘Four fine lads, sir, and everyone as lawless as the town-bull!’
The Duke settled down to listen sympathetically for the next twenty minutes to an exact account of the prowess of the constable’s four sons, their splendid stature, their youthful pranks, and present excellence. The time was not wasted. When the recital ended the Duke had added an officer of the law to his circle of friends and well-wishers; and the constable had agreed to allow him to visit the prisoner.
The Duke then asked to see the pistol. The constable at once produced it, and the most cursory examination was enough to show the Duke that it had never been loaded, much less fired.
The constable looked very much taken-aback by this. He admitted that he had not cared to meddle with such a gun, since it looked to him like one of them murdering duelling-pistols which went off if a man so much as breathed on them.
‘Well, it will not do so when it is unloaded,’ said the Duke. ‘Take a look at it now!’
The constable received the gun gingerly from him, and inspected it. Then he scratched his head. ‘I’m bound to say it ain’t never been fired, not from the looks of it,’ he owned. ‘But Mr Stalybridge and his man and the coachman, they all say as the young varmint pretty nigh shot the ear off of the coachman!’
‘But what does the boy say?’ asked the Duke.
‘Well, that’s it, sir. He don’t say nothing. Proper sullen, that’s what he is!’
The Duke rose. ‘He’ll talk to me. Will you take me to him?’
When the door was opened into Tom’s cell, that young gentleman was discovered seated on the bench in a dejected attitude, his head propped in his hands. He looked up defensively, disclosing a bruised countenance, but when he perceived the Duke his sulky look vanished, and he jumped up, exclaiming with a distinct sob in his voice: ‘Oh, sir! Oh, Mr Rufford! Indeed, I am very sorry! But I didn’t do it!’
‘No, I don’t think you did!’ replied the Duke, in his serene way. ‘But you have been behaving very badly, you know,
and you quite deserve to be locked up!’
Tom sniffed. ‘Well, when you went away, I didn’t know what to do, for I had very little money, and there was the shot to be paid, and I quite thought you had deserted us! Why did you go, sir? Where have you been?’
‘To tell you the truth, I couldn’t help but go,’ said the Duke ruefully. ‘I am very sorry to have made you uncomfortable, but I think you should have known I would not desert you. Now, tell me this, Tom! What did you do to make three persons swear that you fired at one of them?’
The cloud descended again on to Tom’s face. He flushed, glanced up under his lashes at the interested constable, and growled: ‘I shan’t say.’
‘Then I am much afraid that you will be either hanged or transported,’ replied the Duke calmly.
The constable nodded his approval of this, and Tom looked up, his ruddy colour fading swiftly, and cried: ‘Oh, no! No, no, they would not! I didn’t hurt anyone, nor even take the old man’s purse!’
‘What did you do?’ asked the Duke.
Tom was silent for a moment. Then he muttered, staring at his boots: ‘Well, if you will know, it was a ginger-beer bottle!’
His worst fears were realised. The constable’s jaw dropped for a moment, and then he burst into a hearty guffaw, slapping his leg with ecstasy, and saying that it beat the Dutch downright.
‘Ginger-beer bottle?’ repeated the Duke blankly.
‘That’s right, sir,’ said the constable, wiping his eyes. ‘Regular boy’s trick! You shakes the bottle up good, and out flies the cork, just like it was a pistol-shot. Lordy, lordy, to think of three growed men scared of a popping cork! It’ll be the laugh of the town, that’s what it’ll be!’
It was plain that Tom would almost have preferred to have owned to firing a pistol. He hunched his shoulder, and glowered at the constable. The Duke said: ‘Well, thank God for that! What did you do with the bottle?’
‘I threw it into the ditch,’ muttered Tom. ‘And you need not think I meant to steal the old man’s purse, because Pa would have paid him back! And in any event it is different when one is being a highwayman.’
‘Now, that’s where you’re wrong, young man!’ said the constable severely. ‘There ain’t a mite of difference – not but that,’ he added, turning despairingly to the Duke, ‘you’ll never get a young varmint like this here to believe you, tell him till Doomsday! All the same, they be, talking a pack of nonsense about Dick Turpin, and the like!’
The Duke, who could remember thinking that a career as a highwayman would be fraught with romance and adventure, refrained from comment. He merely said that the ginger-beer bottle must be searched for, to prove the veracity of Tom’s story. The constable agreed that this should be done; Tom was locked once more into his cell; and the Duke set off, with a junior constable, and in a hired gig, to the point on the road where Mr Stalybridge had deposed that he had been held up. This, fortunately, was easy to locate, and after a short search the bottle was found. It was borne back in triumph to the senior constable; and after the Duke had slid a gleaming golden coin into his hand, to compensate him (he said) for all the trouble he had been put to, no one could have been more anxious than this comfortable officer to see Tom set at liberty. He favoured the Duke with some valuable information about Mr Stalybridge, fortified with which the Duke set out to pay a call on this injured citizen.
He found a pompous little man, who was obviously set on vengeance. He strutted about his book-room, declaiming, and the Duke soon perceived that an appeal to his charity would be useless. He let him talk himself out, and then said gently: ‘It is all very bad, but the boy did no more than loose the cork of a ginger-beer bottle at your coachman, sir.’
‘I do not believe you, sir!’ stated Mr Stalybridge, staring at him out of a pair of protuberant eyes.
‘But it will be so proved,’ said the Duke. He smiled rather mischievously at his host. ‘I found the bottle, you know. With one of the constables. And it will be shown that the pistol has never been fired. I am so very sorry!’
‘Sorry?’ said Mr Stalybridge explosively.
‘Yes – but perhaps you will not care for it, after all! Only everyone will laugh so! To be giving up one’s purse because a cork flies out of a bottle –’ The Duke broke off, and raised his handkerchief to his lips. ‘Forgive me!’ he apologised. ‘I am sure it was enough to frighten anyone!’
‘Sir!’ said Mr Stalybridge, and stopped.
‘And the boy is only fifteen years old!’ added the Duke, in a stilled voice.
Mr Stalybridge spoke without drawing breath for several moments. The Duke heard him with an air of polite interest. Mr Stalybridge sat down plump in the nearest chair, and puffed, glaring at him. The Duke sighed, and made as if to rise. ‘You are adamant, then,’ he said. ‘I had best visit the magistrate – Mr Oare, is it?’
Mr Stalybridge swelled slightly, and delivered himself of a bitter animadversion on the jobbery that raised to posts of authority those who were demonstrably unfit to hold them. The Duke perceived with satisfaction that the constable had not misled him: Mr Stalybridge and Mr Oare were at loggerheads. Mr Stalybridge eyed him in a frustrated way, and said: ‘If I withdraw the charge it will be out of pity for one who is of tender years!’
‘Thank you,’ said the Duke, holding out his hand. ‘You are a great deal too good, sir. You must believe that I am excessively sorry that you should have been troubled by this badly-behaved boy. Indeed, he shall come up to beg your pardon and to thank you himself.’
Mr Stalybridge hesitated, but after looking very hard at the Duke for a moment or two, he took the hand, saying, however: ‘You go too fast, young man! I said if!’
The Duke smiled at him understandingly. ‘Of course!’
‘And I don’t want to see the young rascal!’ said Mr Stalybridge angrily. ‘I only hope it may be a lesson to him, and if you are a relative of his I beg you will take better care of him in the future!’
‘I shall not let him out of my sight,’ promised the Duke. ‘And now perhaps we had best visit Mr Oare.’
It seemed for a time that Mr Stalybridge was going to draw back, but after the Duke had artlessly suggested that nothing should be said of the ginger-beer bottle he consented to go with him, and to withdraw his charge against Tom. By the time this had been accomplished, and all the other formalities necessary for Tom’s release fulfilled, the day was considerably advanced, and the Duke a good deal the poorer. But he bore Tom off in triumph, and that without having recourse to the use of his own title and consequence, a circumstance which pleased him so much that he quite forgave Tom for his outrageous behaviour. To have outwitted a band of kidnappers, wrested a potential felon from the hands of the Law, and dealt successfully with so inimical a gentleman as Mr Stalybridge, all within twenty-four hours, gave him a much better idea of himself than ever he had had before. There had been times when he had regretted embarking on his odyssey, but although his efforts on Tom’s behalf had been extremely exhausting, and although his money and his stock of clean linen were both running low, he no longer regretted it. He had made an interesting discovery: the retainers who sped to anticipate his every need, and guarded him from all contact with the common world, might be irksome at times, or at times a comfort to him, but he knew now that they were no more necessary to him than his high title: plain Mr Dash of Nowhere in Particular could fend for himself.
So it was with the hint of a smile in his eyes that he bade Tom, over a sustaining dinner, render an account of himself.
‘Well, I had not enough ready on me to pay the shot here,’ explained Tom.
‘But you knew that I had locked my money in my dressing-table.’
‘Of course I did, but a pretty fellow I should be to think of robbing you!’ said Tom indignantly.
‘A pretty fellow you were to think of robbing Mr Stalybridge,’ said the Duke
quizzically.
‘Yes, but that was different!’ insisted Tom. ‘Besides I thought it would be an adventure!’
‘You had your wish, then. Your scruples, I collect, didn’t extend to my pistol?’
‘But, sir!’ Tom said very earnestly. ‘Indeed, I only borrowed that! And I didn’t take any ball, or powder, you know, because I thought you would not like me to.’
‘Well, that was very thoughtful of you,’ said the Duke. ‘And it would have been still more thoughtful of you if you had remembered to keep out of scrapes, and to take care of Belinda.’
‘I was trying to take care of her, sir!’ Tom pointed out. ‘For when you did not come home that night, the landlord said you had loped off without paying our shot, and he was deuced unpleasant, and I quite thought it would make Belinda uncomfortable, only she is such an unaccountable girl, and heeds nothing, besides being a dead bore – anyway, I thought I must see what could be done to come off all right. And I have played that trick with a bottle before, you know, and I thought very likely it would answer, and so it would have if only that fellow had not crept up behind me! And, oh, sir, I very nearly hit the coachman! Only fancy! For I can tell you it is not at all an easy thing to aim a ginger-beer cork.’
‘Tom, you are a hopeless case, and I have a good mind to take you home to your father!’
‘Oh, no, sir, pray do not! I swear I will not do it again! It would be too bad of you, when I took such pains not to give my name at that horrid Round-house, nor anything that could make the constable think I was me! For there is no knowing but that Mr Snape might have enquired for me here. And if you had not gone off without saying anything to me I should not have done it!’ He looked at the Duke with suddenly knit brows. ‘Where did you go to, sir?’
The Duke laughed. ‘You will never forgive me! I had a more exciting adventure than you: I was kidnapped, and held to ransom, and I only escaped by burning down my prison!’