The Wedding Gift

The news Sir George had given her, that the dragoons were ahead, bent upon Vallancey's capture, increased her haste. Accidents might occur. Vallancey at bay might offer a rash resistance, preferring a soldier's death to the hangman's rope that must await him were he taken. Therefore must she outpace the troops, and reach his hiding-place ahead of them.

She was well mounted, and she knew the country as she knew the palm of her own hand. Often had she ridden to hounds across it, but never quite at such a breakneck pace as she rode in the dusk of that September evening, to the great alarm of her attendant. She left the road, and seemed to him bent upon going to St. Mary Ottery as the crow flies, or as nearly so as might be possible for a woman on horseback.

Ahead of them the saffron of the sky grew paler; it became faintly violet, then grey. The stars came out, and the night deepened. Still she pounded on relentlessly, uphill, downhill, by meadow and moorland, over wall and hedge, across brooks and through fords. Twice did her horse stumble, unseating her on the second occasion. Yet undaunted, she pursued her headlong way.

A fearless, high-spirited woman was Lady Mary, as Nat, old groom, was fully aware; and she was as resourceful as she was spirited.

It was midnight when two reeking, steaming horses pulled up on the very borders of Devonshire, at an inn that stood on the left bank of the Char. It was the last inn in England where you would have expected to find relays. But Lady Mary had provided for everything against the success of interview with Jeffreys, and a pair of stout nags were at once forthcoming, to dash Nat's hope that it might be her ladyship's good pleasure to lie the night in that hovel.

The saddles being transferred, they mounted the fresh horses, went splashing through the ford and on. By daybreak they had left Colyton behind them, and were breasting the slopes above the valley of the Otter. On the heights they paused to breathe their nags.

The mellow, golden light of the new-risen sun flooded the country at their feet. They beheld St. Mary Ottery still sleeping below them, and beyond it the gleaming river. For miles they could see the road that wound about the foot of the hills, and nowhere was there a sign of troops. In her reckless cross-country gallop she had outpaced them. She looked at the haggard old groom, and laughed, well pleased.

All fatigue fell from her in that moment of victory. There was no sign of weariness in her fine eyes, her cheeks were delicately flushed, and there was an uprightness in her carriage which made it seem incredible that she should have ridden fifty miles between sunset and sunrise.

Gently they ambled down the slope and through the township, heading for a homestead by the river, a mile or so beyond St. Mary. Across an old stone bridge, barred by a gate which Nat got down to unlatch, they came straight into the yard of the farm, scattering a cloud of poultry in clucking terror. A dog barked furiously, and then, before Nat raised his whip to knock, the door was opened, and a tall, heavy man came forth into the light to challenge them.

He was in grey homespun, with rough woollen stockings, and wooden-soled shoes. His face was bronzed and bearded, his hair touched with grey. There was malevolence in his air, a truculence which vanished the moment his keen blue eyes lighted on this handsome woman in her riding-habit of brown velvet.

"Ye be early astir, ma'am," was his greeting, a lingering suspicion in his voice.

"There is occasion for it, Master Leigh," said she, giving the reins to Nat, and coming lightly to earth. "I am seeking Mr. Vallancey."

His face remained impassive.

"Whom did ye zay?" he inquired, as though the name uttered were one that he now heard for the first time.

She smiled as she advanced towards the porch.

"I said Mr. Vallancey," she replied, and explained: "I am Lady Mary Ormington. You will have heard my name from him."

"I have not, ma'am," said he. But he drew aside to make way for her, and she stepped airily past him into the hall.

It was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, paved in stone and panelled in oak that had all but blackened. In this was ruddily reflected a flickering light from the logs that burnt in the great cowled fireplace. There were leather cushions on the oak settle against the wall; a harpsichord stood open in the embrasure of the long window, and some sheets of music lay upon it. There were books on a table in mid-chamber, and a copper bowl filled with late roses, whose fragrance hung sweetly upon the air. For a rude homestead the place breathed a singular refinement.

On a side-table there was a tall white jug and a glass retaining a film of the milk that it had lately held.

"'Tis what I most need," cried her ladyship. "I have ridden all night, and neither bite nor sup have I had since Dorchester."