Front matter (continued 6)

"Whatever's that?" he muttered.

"'Osses," replied Mr. Minnidick. "A-runnin' away, darn 'em!"

It really seemed as if there were something in this remark, for the noise upon the highway proclaimed that the animals were approaching at a tremendous pace, and would soon be in view of the diligent gardeners. Scarcely had Mr. Minnidick made his last statement, when Mr. Bush went through a somewhat remarkable performance. He dropped his spade, and cast himself down on the earth upon his face, at the same time shouting to Mr. Minnidick:

"Stand before me! Cover me up! Throw sprouts on me! Throw sprouts over me!"

These suggestions were not carried out, for Mr. Minnidick was of a leisurely turn of mind, and at no time of a disposition to sacrifice valuable cabbage growths without good reason. He therefore merely rested on his hoe and stared, at the same time munching the air with extraordinary rapidity and determination. And thus he was posed, like some Shakespearian rustic, when two smoking horses hove in sight, and the air was rent with the cracking of a hunting-whip, and the furious cries of one of the riders.

"Give him his head, Rodney! give him his head, I tell you!"

"I have been giving it him for the last three hours, Duke. If I give it him any more, I shall be killed, I shall indeed!"

"Take your arms from his neck, I tell you!"

"I will not. If I do I shall be thrown. Both the reins have been broken for hours."

"That's because you held 'em so damned tight. You'd break a six-foot rope that'd anchor a man-of-war. Why don't you sit straight?"

"Because I can't, because—I—am—dropping!"

The unfortunate owner of Mitching Dean did indeed seem in a parlous condition. Wrapped in the travelling ulster, his silk hat smashed into a pulp and fixed, by the edge of a rent, on his left ear, he was laid out almost flat along his horse with his arms clasped round its neck. His long white face was smothered in liquid mud, which had only dried upon the bridge of his nose, forming a sort of forbidding-looking island in the midst of his wrinkled countenance. His trousers had been torn into ribbons by the quick-set hedges through which he had passed and the five-barred gates he had reduced to splinters. One of his stirrups had gone. His reins, as he had affirmed, fluttered around his horse's chest in fragments, and he had in some mysterious manner lost a boot, possibly in a small pond in which his animal had recently lain down and rolled out of sheer gaiety of disposition. Altogether, he scarcely looked his best as he reached the hedge of the paragon's domain. On perceiving the rigid figure of Mr. Minnidick, the Duke suddenly pulled up, with the result that Mr. Rodney cannoned against him and promptly bit the mud.

"Damn you, Rodney! Why don't you look where you're going?" said his Grace crossly. "Here, you—my man, can you tell me the way to the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough?"

"Heh?"

"I want the Farm, Bungay Marshes, Lisborough."

"What d'ye want 'un fur?"

"What the deuce is that to you? Get on again, Rodney, or the brute'll be off."

"I cannot. I am unable; I fear both my legs are fractured."

"Nonsense! The shaking'll do you good—wake you up—put some spirit into you. Well, my man, don't you know where the Farm is?"

"Yes, I knows," said Mr. Minnidick.

"Where, then?"

"'Ereabouts."

"I know that."

"What did ye arst me fur, then?"

"Shovel the sprouts over me, d'ye hear? Cover me over!" muttered Mr. Bush, while the Duke angrily rejoined:

"If I have any of your impudence, I'll give you a taste of my whip. Tell me where the Farm is this moment."

"I have told ye."

"Where is it?"

"'Ereabouts."

"Where the devil's hereabouts?"

"Where I'm a-standing of."

"Where you're standing! Why didn't you say so?"

"I did say so—darn it all!"

"Where's your master?" said the Duke. "Is he back?"

"Heh?"

"Where the deuce is your infernal master?"

"'Ereabouts," replied Mr. Minnidick calmly, despite renewed and furious whispers of "Throw sprouts over me! Cover me up!" from the paragon.

"Where the deuce is that?"

"Where I'm a-standin' of," replied Mr. Minnidick, indicating Mr. Bush with the favourite hoe.

The Duke leaped from his horse.

"Here, catch hold, Rodney!" he cried, flinging the reins to the owner of Mitching Dean, who, failing to grasp them, permitted the animal to gallop from the spot at the rate of about twenty miles an hour.

"Rodney, you're the ——dest muddler I ever met in the whole course of my life!" said the Duke witheringly, as he tied up the remaining horse and proceeded to scramble over the hedge in a most murderous and determined manner.

The paragon hastily sat up among the sprouts, and raised his arms before his face in an attitude of awkward defence.

"You rascal!" said the Duke—"you infernal rascal! Then I didn't strangle you, after all?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Bush sulkily, and still keeping up his arms.

"I didn't strangle you. But I will!"

"Duke, Duke, let me counsel delay!" cried Mr. Rodney from the other side of the hedge. "Take time, I implore you—take a little time to think it over."

"Rodney, hold your tongue! I thought I'd killed you," continued his Grace to Mr. Bush.

"You never touched me!" growled the paragon. "You never caught me; I went too quick."

At this statement the Duke looked surprised.

"I certainly strangled someone," he said meditatively. "Rodney, I know I strangled somebody. Who could it have been?"

"Possibly it was merely a footman, Duke," said Mr. Rodney in a relieved tone of voice. "You ought to be very thankful, I am sure."

"I daresay, a footman; or it may have been only Bliggins. It doesn't matter. What does matter is, that I'm going to have satisfaction. D'you hear, sir?" he shouted in Mr. Bush's ear.

"I ain't deaf," retorted that gentleman.

"I'm going to fight you and kill you in your own garden here."

"Darn it all, I say!" from Mr. Minnidick, who was standing calmly by during this social intercourse.

"Duke, I implore you, be calm!" cried Mr. Rodney, grasping some brambles oratorically. "Kill him quietly; don't make a scene, Duke—for Heaven's sake, don't make a scene!"

"He shall have a chance, Rodney; he shall die in fair fight. Choose your weapons!" he added to the paragon.

"Eh?"

"Choose your weapons! What do you generally fight with here?"

"Hoes," replied Mr. Bush sulkily, while Mr. Minnidick muttered something about "Allers fight with a 'oe and you won't repint of it."

"Hoes!" said his Grace. "I've never tried them. I shall have to practise first; that's only fair."

"Yes, yes!" cried Mr. Rodney eagerly—"that's it. Take a week to practise, and then kill him quietly."

"A week! An hour will be enough," said the Duke. "Very well, hoes let it be; where can I get one?"

"At the Elephant and Drum," mumbled the paragon.

"What the deuce is that?"

"The inn to Bungay."

"An inn!" exclaimed Mr. Rodney—"an inn! The very place. There are always plenty of hoes at an inn, and things to eat, and water to wash in. The Elephant and Drum is the very place for us."

"How far is it?" said his Grace.

"Only a mile, straight on," said Mr. Bush, "as the rooks a-go."

"I shall be back in an hour or two, then; and mind, if you try to get away, I'll follow you to the ends of the earth and strangle you there. Now, then——Hulloa! what's that?"

His Grace had perceived the tricycle standing at the wicket-gate. A crafty look came into his face, such as decorates Dan Leno's when that marvel is enacting clever Mr. Green.

"Rodney!" he said.

"Duke!"

"Come over the hedge, get on that tricycle, and follow me; I'll ride the horse."

"But, Duke, I have never tricycled in my life. Indeed, I——"

"Come over the hedge and get on this moment!"

Mr. Rodney feebly crawled sufficiently high up the brambles to be caught hold of and thrown among the sprouts. He was then picked up, led to the machine and placed upon it in a nerveless and quivering heap. The Duke gave him a push, and, as the Farm stood on a slight eminence, the machine instantly ran off at an increasing pace, till Mr. Rodney's cries for assistance died down towards the horizon. Then the Duke mounted the horse, gave Mr. Bush a sinister look, informed him that the duel would take place within the next two hours—or three, at latest—and galloped off towards the inn.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Minnidick examined each other's physiognomies for a moment with some attention. Then Mr. Bush grunted; Mr. Minnidick replied, "Darn it all, I say!" and they resumed their labours among the sprouts. It seemed that Mr. Bush considered any attempt at further flight useless; or possibly he thought that he could hold his own with a hoe against any living man. In either case, he looked more dogged and heavier even than usual as he solemnly turned up the damp earth with his spade, and arranged the lives of various inoffensive and patient vegetables for them, no doubt entirely to his own satisfaction. Presently the rattle of a trotting chaise disturbed these processes. Mr. Bush paused and scratched his head.

"Whatever's that?" he said.

"A kerridge a-comin'," said Mr. Minnidick.

"What should a carriage a-come for?" rejoined the paragon.

Mr. Minnidick uttered his morning hymn, and stared across the hedge by way of reply, while Mr. Bush looked somewhat inclined to lie down again among the sprouts. He stood his ground, however, and was rewarded almost immediately by the appearance of a tub-like chaise chiefly constructed of basket-work, and drawn by a tottering white pony which was driven by a small boy with a very sharply-pointed nose, at whose side—in an attitude of large abandonment and intimate despair—was spread her Grace the Duchess of Southborough. On seeing the paragon, her Grace gave vent to a bass screech, and seizing the hands of the boy with the sharply-pointed nose—much to that individual's fury—compelled him to bring the white pony to against the hedge.

"Oh, Mr. Bush! Mr. Bush!" cried the Duchess.

"What's brought you a-here?" queried the paragon.

"Oh, Mr. Bush, you have ruined me! You have undone me, Mr. Bush!" continued the Duchess, on her most piercing lower notes.

"Get along with yer!" said Mr. Bush, while Mr. Minnidick, poised upon the favourite hoe in a gardening attitude, surveyed the dreadful scene.

"You have, indeed. But you must make reparation! You must and shall!"

And her Grace, who still wore the early Victorian dressing-gown, surmounted with a waterproof cloak, and crowned by a bonnet and feathers, began attempting to scramble over the hedge into the paragon's domain.

"What are yer up to now?" said Mr. Bush. "Where are yer a-makin' for?"

"You!" replied the Duchess, atop of a big bramble interspersed with stakes. "You, you bad, evil-minded man!"

And she pitched into the mould at Mr. Minnidick's feet, head foremost.

"Darn it all, I say!" quoth Mr. Minnidick, while the small boy with the sharply-pointed nose broke out incontinently a-laughing.

"You must go to the Duke, Mr. Bush," proceeded her Grace, getting right end up, and raising her hands towards heaven. "You must go to him and tell him how innocent I am!"

"Innercent—oh, crikey!" said the small boy, emerging for an instant from his convulsions and speaking in a very high treble voice. "Innercent, does she sy?" and he relapsed again into his fit.

Mr. Bush began to look very sulky, and rather as if he were meditating a nap. The Duchess clasped his knees.

"Oh, Mr. Bush!" she wailed; "do me justice! set me right! Go to my husband and tell him what a true wife I have always been to him!"

"Give over! Give over now!"

"I will not give over! I have followed you here, for you alone can tell the Duke that there's nothing between——Oh, hide me! hide me! There's a carriage coming! Oh, if I am seen here I am lost for ever! Hide me!"

"Give over! Where can yer be a-hid?"

Her Grace sprang up with amazing agility for so large a woman. She glanced around like a hunted elephant. She heard the noise of rapidly approaching wheels. Her protruding eye took in the aspect of the place, ravaging it for its possibilities of concealment. Then, with the wail of a thing at bay, she fled across the vegetable-garden, fought her way through a small but dense jungle of gooseberry bushes, and darted into the mushroom-house just as a hired fly containing Mrs. Verulam, Chloe, and the faithful Marriner drove up to the wicket-gate.

"She'll a-treadle down the spawn! She'll do a mischief on them there mushrims! Darn it all, I say!" was Mr. Minnidick's comment on her Grace's choice of sanctuary, while Mr. Bush, who—perhaps deliberately—became more and more lethargic with each accumulating disaster, solemnly started digging again, with the manner of a labourer totally isolated from all intercourse with human-kind.

The bed of sprouts, which seemed rapidly becoming the centre of a whirlpool of violent activities, was at some little distance from the residence of the paragon, and was partially concealed from the wicket-gate and the flower-garden by a small hedge of yew. For this reason, perhaps, the occupants of the hired fly did not at first observe that the garden was tenanted. After enquiring the way to the nearest inn, and being duly informed of the existence of the Elephant and Drum, Mrs. Verulam and Chloe descended from the vehicle, in which the faithful Marriner—looking rather pale—was deliberately driven away.

Mrs. Verulam approached the wicket-gate, leaned upon it, and breathed a gentle sigh.

"Ah, Chloe," she murmured; "how exquisitely peaceful it is! Just what I expected. No harm could happen here. No echoes from the cruel world could ever pierce to this haven. Here there are no intrigues, no quarrels, no secrets, no slanders. Here all is rest and happiness."

"Quite so, dear. And here, or at least very near here, at the Elephant and Drum, I shall be able to change my trousers. It is sweet!"

"It's like heaven!" said Mrs. Verulam ecstatically. "How little Mr. Bush knows that we are here, looking upon his birthplace"—the paragon was born at Brixton, but no matter—"breathing the same air he has so often breathed!"

"You're hardly scientific, Daisy. Besides, by this time Mr. Bush is reading your note at the palace, and the Duchess and all of them know of our departure."

"Ah—true; I had forgotten that. I wonder what the Duchess is saying."

Her Grace was at the moment saying, "Oh, I shall be suffocated!" as she tried to compose herself upon a stack of dibble-holes filled with spawn that would have rejoiced the heart of Nicol.

"No doubt she is taking away your character," said Chloe.

"I hate those large, respectable women!" said Mrs. Verulam with sudden energy, and getting very red.

The special large, respectable woman to whom she alluded was furtively considering the chances of apoplexy, and marvelling at the heroic endurance displayed by the average mushroom.

"Mr. Rodney will be terribly shocked at my running away like this," continued Mrs. Verulam. "He is so neat, so cautious, so deliberate. He cannot understand a wild impulse, and would rather die than embark on any fierce adventure."

This chanced to be the very thought passing through the mind of the owner of Mitching Dean at this moment, as he offered the Duke a choice of hoes in the backyard of the Elephant and Drum, preparatory to taking his stand in the shadow of an upturned tub, to be practised upon in preparation for the duel.

"Poor Mr. Rodney!" said Chloe.

Mrs. Verulam got red again.

"Why poor?" she said.

"Because—oh, Daisy, you know quite well!"

"Please don't be silly, Chloe. I wonder who it was that fired all those shots last night, and what all the noise was about."

"I can't imagine—burglars perhaps. It covered our escape most beautifully. Well, Daisy, you're out of your cage now with a vengeance. Society will never have anything more to do with a hostess who leaves a Duke and a Duchess stranded in the middle of an Ascot week. You might have got over a murder safely, or even me, but you can never get over that."

"I suppose the Duke is furious," said Mrs. Verulam rather wistfully.

She happened to be right. His Grace was furious just then with the owner of Mitching Dean, who, in endeavouring to defend his person from the Duke's attack during the rehearsal, had used his hoe in such an unwarrantable manner as to black his Grace's left eye and very nearly knock out a couple of his Grace's front teeth.

"It can't be helped if he is," said Chloe, wondering what was the exact condition of the Lady Pearl.

"Mr. Bush will follow us immediately, I feel sure," continued Mrs. Verulam, wholly unaware that the paragon had immediately preceded them. "I can see him here before me in his sweet little home;" and as she spoke she opened the wicket-gate with a click and advanced into the garden.

"There doesn't seem to be anybody about," said Chloe, behaving like a person on the stage, and looking everywhere but in the direction where there was somebody to be seen; "not a creature, not a soul. Let us sit down for a moment and rest;" and she took a seat upon a deal bench, of which the mushroom-house formed the back.

The Duchess trembled on the dibble-holes.

"This is deliciously comfortable," said Mrs. Verulam. "I shall always sit on plain wood for the future. Shall you be glad to change your trousers?"

"Little hussy!" thought the Duchess, swelling with angry respectability at this remark.

"Thankful, darling!" said Chloe. The Duchess nearly fainted. "I am sick of them; and, besides, I look ever so much better without them."

At this point her Grace was on the point of forgetting her own somewhat equivocal situation, of bursting out of the mushroom-house, and taking to the open country, where her ears could not be defiled with such terrible revelations. Recollecting herself, however, just in time, she clapped her hands to her ears and endeavoured not to hear another word. In this effort she was successful, for when Chloe spoke again the words sounded but a blurred and distant murmur.

"I long for my darling petticoats," said Chloe, "and for my—my——"

"Your darling Huskinson," said Mrs. Verulam.

"Hush, Daisy!"

"Isn't it true?"

"I don't know. Perhaps, when I see him, I—but he may have gone back to America. He may—ah! ah! ah!"

She suddenly cried out at the very top of her voice, sprang up like one distraught, and grew as pale as a sheet of paper.

Mrs. Verulam was seriously startled.

"What is it? What is the matter?" she exclaimed.

"There—there!" shrieked Chloe, pointing with a trembling finger to a remote part of the garden.

"Where? What? Is it a serpent? Is it a monster?"

"Boswell!" cried Chloe—"Boswell! Oh, if he sees me in these—oh! oh! Daisy, come—come!" and dragging the amazed Mrs. Verulam with her, she sprang across the garden, and darted into the paragon's house without so much as knocking at the door.

"They've a-gone inside. Darn it all!" remarked Mr. Minnidick to Mr. Bush among the sprouts.

The paragon made no reply, but went on digging in a heavy and almost soporific manner. His calm was so great, so apparently complete, that it nearly attained to majesty. The sphinx could not have gardened with a greater detachment in worlds before the sun and before the birth of Time.

Glancing from Mr. Minnidick's attic-window, Mrs. Verulam saw him, and cried out in wild astonishment:

"Chloe, there's Mr. Bush! How can he have got here?"

"I see him," said Chloe. "It doesn't matter. The point is that there's Boswell! There he is—no, not there; more to the left. Now, don't you see him?"

Mrs. Verulam followed her fluttering indication, and perceived a good-sized monkey, with a peculiarly plain and missing-link sort of face, seated upon a red geranium and devouring a very satisfying white rose.

"Isn't he lovely?" continued Chloe. "Isn't he a perfect specimen?"

"Of monkey beauty, no doubt, dear. But——"

"Oh, if he had seen me in those horrible trousers I should have died!" exclaimed Chloe, burying her hot face on Mrs. Verulam's shoulder.

"Are American monkeys really so dreadfully particular?"

"Not Boswell. Huskinson! He must be here. Boswell and he are like brothers."

"Not in appearance, I hope, Chloe?"

"Oh no—no; but in feeling. Huskinson must be close by. What shall I do?—what shall I do?"

"Keep quiet, and escape as soon as possible to the Elephant and Drum. Oh, there's a man——"

"Huskinson! Hide me! hide me! Let me get into a cupboard, or——"

"Two men coming up the road."

"Don't say it's Bream! Daisy, for Heaven's sake, don't—don't say it's Bream!"

"Isn't Bream short?"

"A dwarf, with an immense beard and bow-legs! Is it? is it?"

"No; he has a beard."

"Then it is—it is! What shall I do?"

"But he's tall, and so is——Good heavens!"

"What? what is it?"

"Good heavens!" repeated Mrs. Verulam, falling back from the window as pale as death.

"It is Bream! I knew it! It is Bream!"

"The Duke and Mr. Rodney!" whispered Mrs. Verulam.

Chloe was dumb with mingled relief and surprise.

"It can't—they can't——"

"It is. They are."

It was. They were. Carrying several hoes, they reached the wicket-gate, and advanced into the garden of the paragon.

The Duchess, aware of the flight of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe, was just opening the small door of the mushroom-house in the hope of making good her escape, when, to her horror, she heard the voice of her lawful husband say: "I shall kill him, without a doubt."

A second voice, which she also knew too well, replied in a trembling manner:

"Indeed, I fervently hope so, Duke—I fervently hope so. Still, we can never tell in these matters. A false step, the breaking of a hoe at a critical juncture, and—you have made your will, I hope?"

The speakers stood still at the very door of the mushroom-house, and the Duke said:

"By Jove!"

"I beg your pardon, Duke?"

"By Jove! It's lucky you reminded me. Rodney, have you a sheet of paper?"

"A sheet of paper?"

"Only a scrap—enough for me to disinherit that false woman upon—and a pencil."

The Duchess with difficulty repressed an outcry as she sank down upon a superb specimen of the Black Marsh mushroom.

"I think so, Duke. I have half an envelope."

"Enough. Give it me."

"But—but let me intercede——"

"Not a word. How do you spell 'testament'?"

"With two t's—no, three."

"I know that. Don't be a fool. Is it 'tement' or 'toment'?"

"The latter, I think, I fancy—or the former, one of the two most certainly."

"Of course it's one of the two. But which? It doesn't matter. There! If I fall, she's a pauper. That's something."

It was indeed something to the poor lady among the dibble-holes.

"Take charge of that, Rodney."

"Certainly, Duke. Now I see the word written I fancy it may possibly be 'tament.'"

"It doesn't matter. When a man's going to fight to the death to revenge his honour, one vowel's as good as another."

They advanced towards the bed of sprouts.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE INNOCENT LADY.

The paragon took no notice whatever of their approach. With an immovable countenance and half-shut eyes, he continued to job his spade into the mould, lift it out, throw the excavated earth to either side of him, knock any lumps that there chanced to be to pieces, level the surface, and job the spade in again with mechanical regularity, while Mr. Minnidick hoed in silence at his side, munching the air without cessation. Beyond the hedge the boy with the sharply-pointed nose lay back in the basket-work chaise wrapped in a seraph's slumber, while the white pony nibbled hedgerow grass contentedly in the sunshine. It was upon this exquisitely peaceful and divinely rustic scene that the ruthless Duke now murderously advanced, carrying a hoe in each hand, and attended by the agitated owner of Mitching Dean, who endeavoured to assume the expression of a fanatic, while his gait suggested abject fear tempered by creeping paralysis. Such, however, is the influence of supreme intrepidity upon the soul of man, that even the Duke stopped short on arriving at the sprouts, and gazed for a moment in astonished silence at Mrs. Verulam's idea of Agag thus pursuing the chosen vocation of his existence upon the very edge of the tomb. The rattle of the falling earth would have recalled to a coward soul the sad music that accompanies the burial of even the bravest. But Mr. Bush's nerves were surely made of steel. He did not glance aside. He did not flutter so much as an eyelid, conscious though he was of the Duchess crouching among his mushrooms, and of the infuriated husband waiting for him with the most formidable hoe that the resources of the Elephant and Drum could afford. In fact, he rather suggested an unusually heavy and lethargic person on the verge of slumber than a desperate Don Juan on the point of being slain in a duel.

"Don't you think," whispered Mr. Rodney in the Duke's ear—"don't you think you'd better put it off for a few hours? It seems almost—almost indecent to—to kill a man when—when he's laying out his—his garden."

"I intend to lay him out," returned the Duke. "Mr. Bush!"

The paragon calmly dug on.

"Mr. Bush!" repeated the Duke in a very loud voice. "Are you deaf, sir?—are you deaf and blind, sir?"

"Give over!" muttered the paragon, removing a root and dividing a pink worm into two parts, both of which hastened to places of comparative safety.

"How dare you speak to me like that, sir!" said the Duke. "How dare you do it, sir! Do you suppose that because you have me out here in the depths of the country you can intimidate me, sir?"

"Get along with you!" muttered the paragon, patting the earth on the head with majestic condescension.

The visage of the Duke became empurpled.

"I shall do nothing of the kind, sir!" he exclaimed. "Take a hoe, sir—take a hoe, and stand to your defence this instant!"

"For Heaven's sake, Duke, be calm!" cried Mr. Rodney. "Don't make a scene!"

"Rodney," said his Grace, "you are an egregious ass! Take a hoe—do you hear me, sir?"

"Pull up them weeds, Jacob," said the paragon to Mr. Minnidick, "or they'll choke the rhubub."

"Darn 'em!" rejoined Mr. Minnidick composedly.

"And lay down a bit o' marl along the sparrowgrass."

Mr. Minnidick moved to carry out this last command.

"Lock her in—d'yer hear? Lock her in, and lose the key," whispered Mr. Bush, as Mr. Minnidick was moving off.

Mr. Minnidick munched violently and answered naught, but as he passed the mushroom-house he turned the key on the Duchess, who now believed that her last hour was indeed approaching. Now, Mr. Bush at all times found it difficult to moderate his voice, and even his whisper as a rule was powerful and sonorous. Consequently, the Duke heard what he said, and became even more violently enraged than before.

"Lock her in, d'you say, you villainous ruffian!" he exclaimed. "So you've trapped some other wretched creature into your clutches, have you? You can't even stand by your partner in guilt or stick to one criminal at a time! I daresay," his Grace added, turning sharply on Mr. Rodney—"I daresay that house is positively swarming with degraded females at this very moment."

And he pointed up at the windows of the Farm, from one of which the heads of Mrs. Verulam and Chloe abruptly disappeared.

"Swarming!" said Mr. Rodney deprecatingly. "Oh, Duke, I scarcely think—the house, indeed, hardly appears to—to swarm. You may be in—in error. Take time—do pray take a little time to—to learn more of——"

"Rodney, I am not addressing myself to you!" said his Grace, telling a fairly obvious lie. "I have nothing to say to you. My business is with this gentleman. Stop digging this moment, sir, or I shall not wait for you to fight. I shall kill you where you are gardening without further parley! Stop digging!"

At this juncture Mr. Minnidick calmly approached with the "bit o' marl."

"Where d'ye wish it a-laid?" he asked his master. "Darn it all! where d'ye wish it a-laid?"

"Along the sparrowgrass, I tell yer. And then get to mulchin'."

"Mulchin'!" said Mr. Minnidick severely. "Whativer fur? Darn it all! mulchin' harbours the vermin—mulchin' harbours the vermin. It'll spile the dahlias, I tell ye!"

All this conversation, in which he had no part, and from which it seemed that he was almost insolently excluded, drove the Duke to the very top of his temper.

"Marl and mulching be damned!" he shouted in a passionate voice, and presenting one of the hoes which he carried, he seemed about to go for the paragon and slay him where he stood.

"Save yourself!" cried Mr. Rodney, while Mr. Bush moved backwards with a certain amount of lumbering agility.

"Rodney!" exclaimed his Grace, "how dare you interfere?"

"Duke, I am your second," said Mr. Rodney, pale as ashes, but plucking up a semblance of spirit. "I act for you at your own request. Fight it out like—like men, but don't murder a gentleman in cold blood among his own vegetables."

"I'll murder him where I choose. Will you be killed or will you fight?" the Duke exclaimed frantically to the paragon.

"I won't be a-killed," replied he sulkily.

"Then order your second to stop mulching or marling, or whatever the devil he's doing over there. Come out onto the grass, and we'll have it out fairly."

Mr. Bush scratched his head with his right thumb, looked sleepy, and then called out in a prodigious voice:

"Jacob! Jacob!"

"Darn it all, I hear ye!" retorted Mr. Minnidick, who was following some mysterious profession connected with manure in the middle distance. "What d'ye want a-now?"

"Give over, Jacob!"

Mr. Minnidick gave over, and stood idle with a bitter face.

"Come here, I tell yer!" continued Mr. Bush.

Mr. Minnidick came rheumatically.

"Well?" said the paragon to the Duke—"well?"

"Take your hoe and follow me, sir," said the Duke, and he marched in grim silence to a plot of grass adjacent to the mushroom-house, slowly followed by the rest of the party.

"Chloe, what are they going to do?" said Mrs. Verulam anxiously in Mr. Minnidick's attic. "What are those horrid-looking weapons for? And why is the Duke so angry?"

"I expect Mr. Bush is going to show them how he gardens," said Chloe. "They will see Boswell in a moment. He's just eating a stock. Oh, how shall I manage to change my trousers before Huskinson sees me?"

"But people don't garden on a lawn, do they?"

"Oh yes, anywhere."

"Well, but what's the Duke doing now? He's measuring the ground with a pocket-handkerchief."

"Oh, that's for drillings, I expect."

"Drillings! But they're none of them in the army."

"I mean making drills for sowing."

"Would a Duke sow in summer?"

"He might. One can never tell what a man will do."

"No, indeed! How Mr. Rodney is trembling! And what an extraordinary state his hat is in!"

"I suppose it's his gardening hat. I am sure Boswell will be ill if he mixes his plants like that. And if he's ill Huskinson will go crazy."

"Now Mr. Rodney is handing Mr. Bush a spade. No, it's something else. What is it?"

"A flail, perhaps, or a spud."

"How they are talking now! I wish I could hear what they're saying. I am certain the Duke's in a passion. Look how he shakes his head and clenches his fist. He's lifting his spud now just as if he were going to hit Mr. Bush. Ah, Chloe, I'm frightened!"

So was the paragon, who was considering where he could run away to, when the duel was stayed for a moment by Mr. Minnidick, who suddenly said:

"Darn it all! look at that there monkey a-feedin' on them there pansies!"

At this speech the duelling party assumed attitudes of distinct surprise, and Mr. Rodney said nervously:

"A moment, Duke—a moment, I beg! What do you say is eating pansies?"

"That there monkey—darn it all!" replied Mr. Minnidick, pointing to Boswell with the favourite hoe.

"I will not be interrupted by any monkey!" exclaimed the Duke angrily. "No doubt it has been purposely introduced to balk me of my vengeance. Rodney, it was your business, as my second, to clear the ground."

"I—really I—I must positively decline to clear the—ground of monkeys," said Mr. Rodney, driven to bay at last. "I am ready to—to do anything in—in reason, but I have never been accustomed to handle wild animals, and—no, Duke, I will not begin now at my age—no, not even to oblige you."

And he endeavoured to look dignified and firm.

"Very well, then," cried the Duke. "Then I shall act for myself, since my friend deserts me."

And, with this unmerited accusation, he furiously made towards Boswell with his hoe.

"Oh, Daisy," cried Chloe in the attic—"oh, the Duke is going to kill Boswell—the brute! Oh, it will break Huskinson's heart! What shall I do—oh, what shall I do?"

And she leaned out of the attic window till she nearly fell into the garden of the paragon.

"Chloe, for Heaven's sake, don't! You will be seen. They will see you!"

"I don't care. Let them! There! He's struck at Boswell. He's hit him! Oh, oh! No, Boswell dodged just in time! Now the Duke—oh, he's climbed up a rose-tree!"

"The Duke! Get out of the way, Chloe! Let me see!"

"And now he's coming down head first!"

"What will the Duchess say? And he used to be a Cabinet Minister!"

"He is agile! I never saw anything go so quick. He's making for the shrubbery now on all fours!"

"Chloe, I will see him doing it. Make room for me at once!"

"He's up an acacia! Oh, oh! And now he's jumped into an elm!"

"He'll be killed! No Duke can go on so without being killed."

"The Duke! Don't be so absurd! It's Boswell! He's got away! He's escaped! Heaven be praised! He's got away! How thankful Huskinson will be! The Duke's returning. He's all over green stuff, and foaming at the mouth. I'm glad of it—cruel wretch, to hunt an innocent little monkey so!"

At this point in the panorama Mrs. Verulam forced her way to the window and beheld his Grace, in the very extremity of baffled fury, cursing and swearing at the pitch of his voice, returning to the duelling party, who had been attentively observing his endeavours to clear the ground of monkeys from the shadow of the mushroom-house—in which, by the way, the Duchess was now beginning steadily to suffocate. The noise occasioned by the chase of Boswell had awakened the boy with the sharply-pointed nose from his seraph's slumber, and, anxious to join in the larks that seemed going forward, he now proceeded to swarm over the hedge, and joined the group on the lawn just as his Grace returned to it, and, with many oaths, assumed a posture of attack and presented his hoe at Mr. Bush.

"Come on!" cried the Duke. "Your blasted monkeys sha'n't save you! Come on!"

The paragon honestly believed that his last hour on earth had now arrived, when another providential interruption took place.

"Help!" cried a feeble, failing bass voice. "Help! Murder! murder!"

"Whatever's that?" said Mr. Rodney, endeavouring to turn paler, but failing, since Providence has made no provision for any colour whiter than chalk. "What is it?"

"Help, help!" repeated the bass voice with a fainter accent.

"Crikey!" cried the boy with the sharply-pointed nose, making use of the emblematic word of extreme childhood—"crikey! if it isn't the innercent lydy stifling! My eye! what a lark!"

And he gave free vent to the very natural sense of humour roused in his youthful breast by so auspicious an occurrence. Now, the Duke was nothing if not chivalrous, and, on hearing the small boy's cheerful pronouncement, he exclaimed in a voice of thunder:

"An innocent lady stifling! Where—where is she?"

The boy with the sharply-pointed nose was unable to speak for laughing, but he indicated the mushroom-house with one hand, which he removed for the purpose from his little right knee, on which he had placed it as an assistance to his timely mirth.

"In there! An innocent lady in such a hole as that!" cried the Duke. "You scoundrel!"

And seizing the paragon by the throat, he shook him to and fro a dozen times or more, and then, throwing him aside, sprang to the door of the mushroom-house and endeavoured to tear it open.

"It's locked! It's bolted! Where's the key? Rodney, why don't you fetch the key?"

"Because I don't know where it is!" cried the miserable owner of Mitching Dean.

"And you call yourself a man!" roared the Duke. "She'll be dead in another minute!"

And he shook the door furiously.

"Try your hoe, Duke—try your hoe!" cried Mr. Rodney.

"By Jove! I will!"

And so saying, he tried it with such skill, address, and physical strength that the door gave way, and he beheld his Duchess in the early Victorian dressing-gown fainting upon the dibble-holes.

"Cleopatra!" he cried, and stood as if changed to stone.

But this was only for a moment. He turned. The paragon saw the movement, and fled for his life. Across the garden he moved with the speed and noise of a fire-engine. He gained the house. He leaped up the narrow stairs. He plunged into the inmost recess of the building, which chanced to be Mr. Minnidick's attic.

"Get out o' ther way!" he roared to Chloe and Mrs. Verulam, "or I'll throw yer out o' the winder!"

"Really, Mr. Bush——" began Mrs. Verulam.

"'Really, Mr. Bush,' be blasted!" he roared, and flinging himself upon the ground with a noise like thunder, he endeavoured to conceal himself beneath the truckle-bed of his retainer.

But the paragon was large, and the truckle-bed was small, and as the less cannot contain the greater, Mr. Bush's situation when the Duke bounded into the chamber was merely that of the ostrich. His head, it is true, was concealed from sight, but the whole of his gigantic body was visible and to be got at. The Duke got at it, and despite Mrs. Verulam's cries of alarm, rolled with it down the staircase into the garden, just as a large bus, containing the Bun Emperor, Mr. Harrison, the four remaining detectives and four police-constables in full uniform, their truncheons drawn in their hands, drove up to the wicket-gate.

"Help!" roared Mr. Bush, while Mr. Rodney leaned up against the mushroom-house half dead with terror at the vision of Mrs. Verulam and the orange-grower fluttering forth from the paragon's abode. "Help!"

"There's your man—oh, indeed; most certainly; by all means—there he lies!" cried Mr. Harrison to the police-constables, pointing to Mr. Bush.

"Arrest him! arrest him!" shouted the Bun Emperor. "Take my property from him!"

The constables pulled the Duke off the paragon.

"Let me kill him!" said his Grace. "Let me kill the scoundrel!"

"Not till he's been hanged for stealing my property!" shouted the Emperor, ablaze with passion.

"For Heaven's sake, don't make a scene before the ladies!" shrieked Mr. Rodney.

"Rely on me—oh, indeed, most certainly, in all circumstances rely on me!" cried Mr. Harrison, doing nothing, with starting eyes.

The police stood firm. They planted the paragon on his feet, held him by the scruff of his neck, turned out his pockets, and revealed the silver whisky-bottle and the gold presentation cigar-case.

"What did I say?" cried Mr. Harrison—"what did I at all times and ever say? Oh, indeed!"

Nobody seemed to know or care, and at this moment attention was diverted by the appearance of the Duchess from the mushroom-house and the faithful Marriner from the wicket-gate. The Duchess tottered feebly forward, grasping the early Victorian dressing-gown with both hands.

"Crikey!" cried the boy with the sharply-pointed nose; "it's the innercent lydy! She ain't stifled!"

And he nearly dropped with childish disappointment.

"Yes," bellowed her Grace, "I am an innocent lady. Oh, Southborough!" And she proceeded to explain the cause of her situation. "He wouldn't speak for me. He fled—the base one fled!" she shouted pathetically, pointing at the paragon. "He's not a man!"

"No more am I!" cried Chloe, who had been engaged in whispering with the faithful Marriner, and who now came forward blushing very much and trying to look very composed.

"Chloe!" said Mrs. Verulam.

"Daisy, it's all up! Huskinson knows everything, and is just coming up the road. He traced me to Park Lane, and Francis has told him all. He is staying at the Elephant and Drum, and met Marriner by chance. He forgives me. And I trust you will," she added, turning to the Duke and Duchess.

They listened to her succeeding remarks with dropped jaws.

"This gentleman a lady!" cried Mr. Rodney, pressing his hand to his heart and sitting down in a bed of stinging-nettles.

"This man a woman!" shrieked the Duchess. "But then," she added, staring at Mrs. Verulam, "you—you are——"

"Respectable," said Mrs. Verulam, with a rather malicious intonation.

"Mr. Van Adam a female!" her Grace reiterated. "But—but—Pearl—I shall have to afford to send her to Carlsbad this summer, after all, unless Mr. Ingerstall——" She paused abruptly. "Southborough," she cried, "come away!"

And she led off the astounded Duke to the pony-carriage, made him get into it, and drove away with him, followed by the boy with the sharply-pointed nose, who ran vociferously behind, objurgating those who thus usurped his position of coachman at the top of his shrill treble voice.

Meanwhile Mrs. Verulam had begged off the paragon, for the Bun Emperor, on being confronted with a pretty woman almost in tears, developed unexpected susceptibilities, and became almost polite.

"Let him go, Mr. Harrison," said the Emperor to the groom of the chambers, who was nowhere near Mr. Bush—"let the ruffian go!"

"Rely on me, sir," was the groom of the chambers' apt reply.

"We do, Mr. Harrison, we do. Me and Mrs. Lite is not insensible of your services."

The groom of the chambers inclined himself and stepped into the bus, to which he was shortly followed by the detectives, the constables, and the Emperor, who said to Mrs. Verulam in parting:

"Frederick is picking the bullets"—Miss Bindler's—"out of the palace walls, ma'am. When this is done, me and Mrs. Lite would be obliged if we could return to the home. Your time is nearly up."

"I consider it quite up," said Mrs. Verulam, who had no very pleasant recollections of Ribton Marches. "Pray return whenever you please."

The Emperor drove away in high feather, after excusing himself to Mr. Rodney for breaking his word, and breaking out of the fishing-cottage. The paragon and Mr. Minnidick had now returned to their interrupted avocations. Mr. Bush was sulkily digging among the sprouts. Mr. Minnidick was busy with the mulching and the marl. Mrs. Verulam looked towards her idea of Agag.

"I suppose I ought to say good-bye to him," she said rather tremulously.

"To a thief and a coward!" murmured Mr. Rodney, in a reproachful and yet tender tone.

"To a man who wanted to throw you out of the window!" said Chloe.

"He was my guest and my hero."

"Very well."

Mrs. Verulam advanced to the bed of sprouts.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bush," she said.

The paragon turned up a worm.

"Mr. Bush, good-bye."

"Jacob!" called the paragon.

"Darn it all, I hear ye!" piped Mr. Minnidick. "What d'ye want a-now?"

"Get to dressin' the earth round them hornbeam hedges with soap-ash. D'yer hear?"

Mrs. Verulam turned away and took Mr. Rodney's arm.

"You will not leave society?" he whispered. "You will not take to these horrible pursuits?"

"Perhaps—perhaps not. I must think. I must ponder."

"Come and ponder at Mitching Dean."

She smiled at him. They joined Chloe and the faithful Marriner. Chloe had just run to the corner of the lane.

"He's coming, Daisy!" she whispered excitedly. "I've seen him in the distance. He's coming. Boswell is sitting on his shoulder. Oh, oh!"

"Dear Chloe!" said Mrs. Verulam. "And society?"

"I've had enough of it. I only want Florida and—and him. And you, Daisy?"

"I'm not particularly anxious for Florida."

And again she smiled at Mr. Rodney.

"Ma'am," said the faithful Marriner to Mrs. Verulam, "might I speak?"

"Certainly, Marriner. What is it?"

"With your permission, ma'am, I desire to enter matrimony."

"Indeed! With Francis, I suppose?"

"No, ma'am; with Mr. Harrison."

"Who is that?"

"The gentleman in the bus with the bald head, ma'am."

"Oh!"

"I feel that I can rely upon him, ma'am," said the faithful Marriner.

THE END.

COLLECTION BRITISH AUTHORS TAUCHNITZ EDITION VOL. 4357 THE LONDONERS. By ROBERT HICHENS IN ONE VOLUME

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

By the same Author,

FLAMES 2 vols.

THE SLAVE 2 vols.

FELIX 2 vols.

THE WOMAN WITH THE FAN 2 vols.

THE GARDEN OF ALLAH 2 vols.

THE BLACK SPANIEL, ETC. 1 vol.

THE CALL OF THE BLOOD 2 vols.

A SPIRIT IN PRISON 2 vols.

BARBARY SHEEP 1 vol.

BELLA DONNA 2 vols.

THE SPELL OF EGYPT 1 vol.

THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD 1 vol.

THE FRUITFUL VINE 2 vols.

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