The Talisman Ring

The house was in pitch darkness, and only Sir Hugh’s snores broke the silence, but Miss Thane was convinced that there had been other and very stealthy sounds. Her first thought was that someone had entered the house, presumably in search of Ludovic, and she was about to steal along the passage to rouse Nye, when another explanation of the faint sounds occurred to her. She went quickly to Ludovic’s room and scratched on, the door panel. There was no answer, and without the slightest hesitation she turned the handle and looked in.

One glance at the unruffled bed was enough to send her flying along the passage to wake Nye. This was easily done, and within two minutes of an urgent, low-voiced call to him through the keyhole, he was beside her on the passage, with a pair of breeches dragged on over his night-shirt, and his night-cap still on his head. When he heard that Ludovic was not in his room he stared at Miss Thane with a pucker between his brows, and said slowly: “He wouldn’t do it—not alone!”

“Where’s Clem?” demanded Miss Thane under her breath.

He shook his head. “No, no, Clem was of my own mind over this. You must have been mistook, ma’am. He wouldn’t set out to walk that distance, and he can’t saddle a horse with his arm in a sling.” He broke off suddenly, and his eyes narrowed. “By God, you’re right, ma’am!” he said. “He must have seen Abel! That accounts for him being so uncommon cheerful, drat the boy! Get you back to your room if you please, ma’am. I’ll have Clem saddle me a horse while I get some clothes on, and be off after them.”

Miss Thane had been thinking. “Wait, Nye, I’ve a better notion. Send Clem to inform Sir Tristram. You’ll not catch that wretched boy in time to stop him entering the Dower House, and once he has stepped into whatever trap may have been set for him, Sir Tristram’s perhaps the one person who might be able to get him out of it.”

Nye paused. After a moment’s reflection he said reluctantly:

“Ay, that’s true enough. And Clem’s a smaller man than what I am, and will ride faster. It’s you who have the head, ma’am.”

While Clem was flinging on his clothes, and Nye was in the stable saddling a horse, and Miss Thane was sitting on the edge of her bed wondering whether there was anything more she could do to avert disaster from Ludovic, the object of all this confusion was striding down the lane leading to Warninglid, quite oblivious of the possibility of pursuit. The moon, hidden from time to time behind drifting clouds, gave enough light to enable him to see his way, and in a little while showed him two horses, drawn up in the lee of a hedge of hornbeam.

Abel greeted him with a grunt, and offered him a flask produced from the depths of his pocket. “Play off your dust afore we start,” he recommended.

“No, I must keep a clear head,” replied Ludovic. “So must you, what’s more. I don’t want you disguised.”

“You’ve never seen me with the malt above the water—not to notice,” said Mr Bundy, refreshing himself with a nip.

“I’ve seen you as drunk as a wheelbarrow,” retorted Ludovic, taking the flask away from him and putting it in his own pocket. “It makes you devilish quick on the pull, and taking the fat with the lean, I think we won’t do any shooting unless we’re forced. My cautious cousin’s against it, and I admit there’s a deal in what he says. I don’t want to be saddled with any more corpses. Give me a leg-up, will you?”

Bundy complied with this request, and asked what he was to do if it came to a fight.

“Use your fists,” answered Ludovic. “Mind you, I dare say there’ll be no fighting.”

“Just as well if there ain’t,” said Bundy, hoisting himself into the saddle. “A hem set-out it will be if you get yourself into a mill with only one arm! I doubt I done wrong to come with you.”

This was said not in any complaining spirit but as a mere statement of fact. Ludovic, accustomed to Mr Bundy’s processes of thought, agreed, and said that there was a strong likelihood of them ending the night’s adventure in the County Gaol.

They set off down the lane at an easy trot, and since Clem had chosen the shorter but rougher way to the Court that led through the Forest, they were not disturbed by any sound of pursuit. As they rode, Ludovic favoured his companion with a brief explanation of what they were to do at the Dower House. Bundy listened in silence, and at the end merely expressed his regret that he was not to be given an opportunity of darkening Beau Lavenham’s daylights for him. His animosity towards the Beau seemed to be groundless but profound, his main grudge against him being that he stood a good chance of stepping into Sylvester’s shoes. When he spoke of Sylvester he betrayed something as nearly approaching enthusiasm as it was possible for a man of his phlegmatic temperament to feel. “He was a rare one, the old lord,” he said simply.