The Lion's Skin. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ from the north to draw his mind from its obsessing thoughts. He watched the yellow body of the coach as it came furiously onward, its four horses stretched to the gallop, postillion lusty of lungs and whip, and the great trail of dust left behind it spreading to right and left over the flowering hedge-rows to lose itself above the gold-flecked meadowland. On it came, to draw up there, at the very entrance to Maidstone, at the sign of the “Adam and Eve.”

      Mr. Caryll, leaning on the sill of his window, looked down with interest to see what manner of travellers were these that went at so red-hot a pace. From the rumble a lackey swung himself to the rough cobbles of the yard. From within the inn came again landlady and chamberlain, and from the stable ostler and boy, obsequious all and of no interest to Mr. Caryll.

      Then the door of the coach was opened, the steps were let down, and there emerged—his hand upon the shoulder of the servant—a very ferret of a man in black, with a parson's bands and neckcloth, a coal-black full-bottomed wig, and under this a white face, rather drawn and haggard, and thin lips perpetually agrin to flaunt two rows of yellow teeth disproportionately large. After him, and the more remarkable by contrast, came a tall, black-faced fellow, very brave in buff-colored cloth, with a fortune in lace at wrist and throat, and a heavily powdered tie-wig.

      Lackey, chamberlain and parson attended his alighting, and then he joined their ranks to attend in his turn—hat under arm—the last of these odd travellers.

      The interest grew. Mr. Caryll felt that the climax was about to be presented, and he leaned farther forward that he might obtain a better view of the awaited personage. In the silence he caught a rustle of silk. A flowered petticoat appeared—as much of it as may be seen from the knee downwards—and from beneath this the daintiest foot conceivable was seen to grope an instant for the step. Another second and the rest of her emerged.

      Mr. Caryll observed—and be it known that he had the very shrewdest eye for a woman, as became one of the race from which on his mother's side he sprang—that she was middling tall, chastely slender, having, as he judged from her high waist, a fine, clean length of limb. All this he observed and approved, and prayed for a glimpse of the face which her silken hood obscured and screened from his desiring gaze. She raised it at that moment—raised it in a timid, frightened fashion, as one who looks fearfully about to see that she is not remarked—and Mr. Caryll had a glimpse of an oval face, pale with a warm pallor—like the pallor of the peach, he thought, and touched, like the peach, with a faint hint of pink in either cheek. A pair of eyes, large, brown, and gentle as a saint's, met his, and Mr. Caryll realized that she was beautiful and that it might be good to look into those eyes at closer quarters.

      Seeing him, a faint exclamation escaped her, and she turned away in sudden haste to enter the inn. The fine gentleman looked up and scowled; the parson looked up and trembled; the ostler and his boy looked up and grinned. Then all swept forward and were screened by the porch from the wondering eyes of Mr. Caryll.

      He turned from the window with a sigh, and stepped back to the table for the tinder-box, that for the eleventh time he might relight his pipe. He sat down, blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling, and considered. His nature triumphed now over his recent preoccupation; the matter of the moment, which concerned him not at all, engrossed him beyond any other matter of his life. He was intrigued to know in what relation one to the other stood the three so oddly assorted travellers he had seen arrive. He bethought him that, after all, the odd assortment arose from the presence of the parson; and he wondered what the plague should any Christian—and seemingly a gentleman at that—be doing travelling with a parson. Then there was the wild speed at which they had come.

      The matter absorbed and vexed him. I fear he was inquisitive by nature. There came a moment when he went so far as to consider making his way below to pursue his investigations in situ. It would have been at great cost to his dignity, and this he was destined to be spared.

      A knock fell upon his door, and the landlady came in. She was genial, buxom and apple-faced, as becomes a landlady.

      “There is a gentleman below—” she was beginning, when Mr. Caryll interrupted her.

      “I would rather that you told me of the lady,” said

      “La, sir!” she cried, displaying ivory teeth, her eyes cast upwards, hands upraised in gentle, mirthful protest. “La, sir! But I come from the lady, too.”

      He looked at her. “A good ambassador,” said he, “should begin with the best news; not add it as an afterthought. But proceed, I beg. You give me hope, mistress.”

      “They send their compliments, and would be prodigiously obliged if you was to give yourself the trouble of stepping below.”

      “Of stepping below?” he inquired, head on one side, solemn eyes upon the hostess. “Would it be impertinent to inquire what they may want with me?”

      “I think they want you for a witness, sir.”

      “For a witness? Am I to testify to the lady's perfection of face and shape, to the heaven that sits in her eyes, to the miracle she calls her ankle? Are these and other things besides of the same kind what I am required to witness? If so, they could not have sent for one more qualified. I am an expert, ma'am.”

      “Oh, sir, nay!” she laughed. “'Tis a marriage they need you for.”

      Mr. Caryll opened his queer eyes a little wider. “Soho!” said he. “The parson is explained.” Then he fell thoughtful, his tone lost its note of flippancy. “This gentleman who sends his compliments, does he send his name?”

      “He does not, sir; but I overheard it.”

      “Confide in me,” Mr. Caryll invited her.

      “He is a great gentleman,” she prepared him.

      “No matter. I love great gentlemen.”

      “They call him Lord Rotherby.”

      At that sudden and utterly unexpected mention of his half-brother's name—his unknown half-brother—Mr. Caryll came to his feet with an alacrity which a more shrewd observer would have set down to some cause other than mere respect for a viscount. The hostess was shrewd, but not shrewd enough, and if Mr. Caryll's expression changed for an instant, it resumed its habitual half-scornful calm so swiftly that it would have needed eyes of an exceptional quickness to have read it.

      “Enough!” he said. “Who could deny his lordship?”

      “Shall I tell them you are coming?” she inquired, her hand already upon the door.

      “A moment,” he begged, detaining her. “'Tis a runaway marriage this, eh?”

      Her full-hearted smile beamed on him again; she was a very woman, with a taste for the romantic, loving love. “What else, sir?” she laughed.

      “And why, mistress,” he inquired, eying her, his fingers plucking at his nether lip, “do they desire my testimony?”

      “His lordship's own man will stand witness, for one; but they'll need another,” she explained, her voice reflecting astonishment at his question.

      “True. But why do they need me?” he pressed her. “Heard you no reason given why they should prefer me to your chamberlain, your ostler or your drawer?”

      She knit her brows and shrugged impatient shoulders. Here was a deal of pother about a trifling СКАЧАТЬ