The Sherwood Ring (19 page)

Fortunately, George was still young and no larger below the shoulders than I was. My boots and breeches fitted him easily enough. The coat, of course, was a narrow squeeze, but I left it unbuttoned and hoped for the best. I had just settled his powdered wig on my own head, and was twisting off my signet ring to slip over the fourth finger of his left hand when there was a sudden rattle of spurs on the flagstones, and a gruff Southern voice called from the garden behind me: "You there, have you seen a — Hey! what's that you've got?"

The large lieutenant I had seen reading the proclamation at the tavern was standing at the foot of the steps, a cluster of troopers crowding at his back, all of them staring at the British officer and the liveried servant on the terrace. They were, happily, unable to perceive that it was no longer quite the same British officer and liveried servant who had been there five minutes before.

I dropped the signet ring into my pocket and rose twittering to my feet, the perfect image of a distracted young footman only too thankful to surrender a difficult problem into the hands of the proper authorities.

"I don't quite know myself, sir," I bleated uncertainly. "I was just going back to the scullery with my tray of glasses, sir, and I saw this person hiding there under the oak on the terrace, and he seemed to be a British officer, sir, so I knocked him down, sir, and I do hope I haven't done no harm, sir, if — " The rest of the sentence was lost as the large lieutenant swept me aside with one wave of his arm and went down on his knee beside George's prostrate body.

"I do hope I haven't done no harm, sir," I repeated pitifully.

"Harm!" said the large lieutenant, with a snort. "You've probably put in the best night's work you ever did in your life, son. You know who this is? Well, it's Peaceable Sherwood."

"Oh, sir!"

"Yes, that's it — if he's the one I think he is. Let's see. Tall: correct. Thin — well, he isn't fat anyway: correct. Blue eyes: correct. Signet ring: missing. Look, son, what was that thing I saw you putting in your pocket when we came up the steps? Well, well, never mind, keep it, I suppose you deserve it, let's just not say anything more about it. Dirty regulation tie-wig and British uniform: correct. Looks like we've found him all right, boys. Still, to make sure — any of you-all ever seen him so close that you'd recognize him again? Step forward!"

Rather to my relief, nobody stepped forward.

"Colonel Grahame or Miss Barbara could tell right away, sir," suggested a voice helpfully. " 'Twouldn't take me a minute to run around to the back of the house and fetch one of them, sir."

The lieutenant glanced in at the glittering crowd and shook his head. "I reckon that won't be necessary," he said doubtfully. "Colonel Grahame wouldn't thank us for breaking up his party and making a riot the night before his wedding — not with the General here and everybody — and after all, it isn't as if there were
two
British officers loose in Orange County with captains' uniforms and dirty wigs and blue eyes and all the rest of it. Suppose we just pick him up quiet and easy, and get out of here before anybody — "

"Why, Lieutenant Carter! I thought you said you were on duty tonight and couldn't come?"

Lieutenant Carter turned on his heel and bowed profoundly as a slender figure in yellow closed the long window behind her and came out to us, the candlelight shimmering over her fan and her dress and the brilliants starring her hair. At the sound of her voice, I drew one deep breath and retreated modestly to the shade of the oak tree.

"Nothing at all worth troubling you with, Miss Barbara ma'am," Lieutenant Carter was explaining apologetically. "Only one of the Britishers up at the Goshen jail who escaped last night and was trying to get down to New York. I'm afraid we had to break into your garden to catch him."

"Into our garden?" echoed Barbara. "But of all the foolish places for him to ... Oh! Who — who is he?"

"Well, it's odd, Miss Barbara, but he seems to be that same marauder you and the Colonel captured last Christmas — you remember him? Sherwood? Captain Peaceable Sherwood?"

The fan Barbara was carrying suddenly shimmered a little in the candlelight, as if the fingers that held it had tightened their grip, but her answer came in precisely the right tone of polite surprise and interest.

"Indeed? How very astonishing!" she said. "I hope the poor man isn't badly hurt?"

"Oh, he'll wake up again all right and tight back in the Goshen jail," replied Lieutenant Carter cheerfully. "Seems he had a fight with one of your own servants, who found him hiding on the terrace and knocked him down — that man over there yonder, under the tree."

Barbara turned and glanced at me. The friendly shadow of the oak lay thick across my face, but unfortunately not quite thick enough to conceal the shape of my head and the outline of my shoulders. I saw Barbara's lips part and her eyes widen suddenly in bewilderment.

"Are you sure you've caught the right man, Lieutenant Carter?" she inquired, with a new and rather strange note in her voice.

"Fairly sure, Miss Barbara," said Lieutenant Carter complacently. "Of course, though, we had only the printed description to go by, and — well, I wonder if it would be asking too much of you, Miss Barbara, now you're out here anyway, just to glance at him, and see if you can't positively identify him for us? Blood doesn't make you faint, does it?"

I knew what the answer was going to be even before Barbara made it.

"Not in the least, sir. If you wouldn't mind stepping to one side a little — ?" She bent forward, guarding her skirts delicately from the shards of broken glass, and surveyed the miserable George for a long moment in silence. It was the sort of silence I could imagine falling over the crowd on the Goshen green as the rope tightened slowly around my neck.

Then Barbara straightened up again and turned back to Lieutenant Carter.

"I can't
swear
to him, of course," she said, slowly and deliberately. "His own sweetheart couldn't swear to that face just now, I'm afraid. But I will say that I'm sure I've seen him before. He looks very familiar — " her eyes went around the circle of intent faces and came to rest again, as if by chance, on mine: "very familiar indeed. And he
is
wearing Captain Sherwood's coat. I remember that patch on the left elbow distinctly."

"That last fact alone would be quite enough to satisfy us, I assure you," said the lieutenant heartily. "Pick him up, boys. The sooner he goes back where he belongs, the better. I really don't know how to thank you properly, Miss Barbara. If there's any way my men or I can show our appreciation — "

"Very easily. Do you think you could possibly get him off the grounds before anyone else sees him? After all, fights and escaping prisoners and blood at a dance where the guests are supposed to be enjoying themselves the night before a wedding —" She broke off with an appealing little gesture of her hands.

"Not a soul will even know we've been here," promised Lieutenant Carter handsomely.

"How very kind of you, sir — and I only wish you could stay on for the dancing." She gave him one of her delightful smiles and turned back to the long window. "Come, George," she added, over one shoulder.

"George — Oh Lord, yes, I'd forgotten about him." The lieutenant stopped short halfway down the steps, fumbled in his coat, and tossed me a silver coin, which I caught neatly and put in my pocket with a grateful bow.

"And I only wish it was more, son," he added cordially. "But I'll tell them up at Goshen that you're the one who ought to get the reward, if there should happen to be any. Meanwhile" — he bowed again to Barbara as he turned to rejoin his followers — "I'm sure Miss Barbara here will take good care of you and see you're treated the way you deserve to be."

"You may be certain of that, Lieutenant Carter," said Barbara sweetly, giving him another dazzling smile as she closed her fan with a snap and swept me in through the window. I followed her in silence past the fringes of the dance and down the room to a secluded corner where a silver punch bowl stood on a small table, flanked and cut off from the rest of the dining parlor by a heavy screen. Here she halted and turned fiercely to confront me.

"Now, I'll attend to
you,"
she said dangerously. "Have you lost your mind, coming straight back to the house like this? Didn't you remember that I was the one who put you in that jail in the first place?"

"Oh, yes," I assured her. "All the Sherwoods have memories like elephants. We never forget."

"And what possessed you to take off that uniform?" wailed Barbara. "Are you completely mad? Don't you know they'll hang you now if they catch you?"

"Something of the sort did pass through my head," I admitted. "I even composed about half of a farewell speech (to be recited on the gallows) in the time you spent looking at George to see if you couldn't positively identify him."

"Oh, will you stop talking nonsense!" She wrung her hands distressfully together. "Be quiet and let me think! Dear Lord, what am I going to do with you? What in the world am I going to do with you?"

"That," I answered, finding a place where I could lean comfortably against the corner of the table, "is the exact question which I came to Rest-and-be-thankful especially to ask you. What
are
you going to do with me? You may perhaps remember that at Christmas time I did myself the honor of asking for your hand in — "

A voice from the other side of the screen interrupted me. It was a gay, careless voice, very distinct above the low laughter and the music.

"Oh, Felton! Just one moment, please! Have you chanced to see my sister anywhere about? There's something I have to tell her."

The reply came without an instant's hesitation. "I thought I had a glimpse of her just now going back to the corner with the punch bowl, sir."

All the color faded suddenly out of Barbara's cheeks and lips, leaving her face so white that the gray eyes looked black.

"It's Dick," she whispered. "Oh heaven help us, it's Dick, and he's coming over here."

"Why not?" I inquired cordially. "It's his own party, isn't it? I'm only a simple country boy named George who's come in from Paw's farm to work here for the night. He won't even look at me — nobody ever looks at the footmen. All I have to do is turn my back and start ladling punch into the cups. You see? Now, where was I? Oh, yes . . . the honor of asking for your hand in marriage. Unfortunately, however, I failed to catch your reply, owing to circumstances beyond my control, so — "

"Will you be quiet!" hissed Barbara frantically.

I dipped up a ladleful of punch, and out of the tail of my eye, saw Dick appear around the edge of the screen, his arm linked through Eleanor Shipley's and his dress epaulettes gleaming under the light of the candles. I had been quite right: his glance swept past me as if I had been a piece of the furniture and went directly to his sister.

"Heard the news?" he inquired hilariously. "Major Ambrose was telling me. He said he heard them crying it in a tavern on his way down. Peaceable Sherwood's broken out of the Goshen jail at last — and I thought I'd best warn you, so you won't be taken unawares when he comes after you."

"And truly kind of you, Dick, only a trifle behindhand," retorted Barbara provokingly, "seeing that he's come already — and gone back again, as a matter of fact."

"Come already! and . . . what did you say?"

"Gone back again. Lieutenant Carter found him and arrested him while he was hiding in the garden. About seven minutes ago, I think, if you wish me to be exact."

Dick uttered a howl of skepticism and derision. "Tell me a story I can swallow!" he hooted. "And don't fancy you're going to make me believe that any lieutenant just picked Peaceable up and took him away without rousing the house or creating the least disturbance that reached your brother's ears."

"Precisely what he did do. I asked him not to interrupt the dancing and excite the guests."

"Wait a minute! What are you talking about now? You asked him?"

"I asked him."

"You
were there?"

"I was there. Perhaps you're not aware that it's possible to see that end of the terrace from this small table by the screen? Perceiving a number of strangers by one of the windows, I naturally stepped outside myself, and there I found a man in a British uniform unconscious and bleeding from a bad blow on the head. Lieutenant Carter and his troops were in the act of examining the body. He asked me to identify it for them. I did so to the best of my ability."

"Well, well, well!" Dick gave a long, ungentlemanly whistle, then broke down helplessly into laughter. "Asked
you
to identify him, did they?" he gasped. "My poor, poor Barbara! You do have the worst luck with that man of yours, don't you?"

"He isn't any man of mine," said Barbara indignantly.

"No? Why was he hiding in our garden, then? It's not a place hunted fugitives usually head for. You'd think a man with Peaceable's brains and experience could have found a hundred better holes."

"That's not for me to say."

"Now, don't be spiteful, Barbara. Tell your brother, like a good little girl. What did he come to bring you? The wedding ring?"

"Once and for all, Richard Grahame, there is no question of my marrying him."

"Is there not? Who spent the last six months sitting at her window and looking wistfully down the Goshen road?"

"Dick, be quiet!" cried Barbara sharply.

"Who made me throw away half my winter trying to get him released or exchanged? — and what a fine waste of time that was! I told you to begin with that they'd sooner turn the devil loose."

"It was only because I was grateful to him for saving my life."

"Well, I was grateful too, but it didn't make me stop my horse and gaze at a jail as if it were my hope of heaven whenever I went up to town."

"I never did any such — "

"Who always gets what he wants, Barbara?"

"Dick, you are becoming impossible!" broke in Eleanor Shipley, laughing. "Can't you see there's a footman over there who can hear every word you say? Stop teasing your sister this instant and go back to your dance! They'll be making up another set in a moment. I can hear the musicians now."