The Brown Mask Part 54

"I knew soon after that night at Aylingford, the night Rosmore and I fought in the hall. It is a strange history. He came to Aylingford shortly after you were brought there as a child, a chance derelict it seemed, and not a little mad at times. But his coming was no chance. He knew your father, and came to be near you and watch over you. In a sense Martin was always a dreamer, but he was never a madman. He played a part to get a lodging within the Abbey, and he has played that part in your interest ever since. Many things which must have set you wondering at times you will understand when you read these papers. He soon discovered what manner of man your uncle was, and the kind of company the Abbey gave shelter to. It was worse than you have imagined--a whirlpool of vice and debauchery. Such vice is expensive, and a long run of bad luck at play might easily bring a man to the verge of ruin. Your uncle came to the brink of the precipice, his appet.i.te for vice and play still insatiated. Your fortune was in his keeping, and he used it."

"Then I have nothing!" exclaimed Barbara, turning to Gilbert, "and I have been thinking and planning that--"

"My dear, your money was nothing to me."

"I know, but--"

"Better let me finish the story, Mistress Lanison," said Fellowes. "In some way, I cannot tell you how, Lord Rosmore discovered what your uncle was doing. He therefore obtained a hold over Sir John, which hold he used for the purpose of forcing himself upon you, meaning to marry you.

I do not doubt that, in a way, he loved you, but he wanted your money too, for Rosmore has squandered his possessions for years past, and must be near the end of his tether. Martin declares that it is only money he wants."

"Has he been using my fortune, too?"

"No, except those large sums which he has won from your uncle from time to time. Possibly, in the firm belief that your money would some day be his, he may have checked your uncle's recklessness, and he has never let Sir John know his position. Sir John was usually an unlucky player, in the long run he invariably lost, and there has hardly been a guest at the Abbey who has not enriched himself. This fact set Martin Fairley scheming. He became 'Galloping Hermit,' the notorious wearer of the brown mask, and plundered travellers with amazing success. It has been said of him that he never made a mistake, that the plunder he took was always large. His victims, too, were always those who had bad reputations; and, one thing more, Mistress Lanison, his victims have always won largely at Aylingford Abbey. Where Sir John squandered your fortune, Martin compelled Sir John's guests to disgorge on the high road. He knew when they were worth robbing. As 'Galloping Hermit' he got back a considerable part of your fortune--from the very persons who profited by Sir John's ill use of it. For my part, I cannot call that robbery. His plunder he stored at the Abbey, somewhere near the Nun's Room. You and Crosby escaped from Martin's tower one night that way.

While you have been a prisoner in Dorchester, Martin has been to Aylingford, and, playing upon Sir John's superst.i.tion, showed him one way of breaking into the secret chamber where a treasure was hidden, and in exchange heard what Lord Rosmore intended to do with you. You were to be smuggled back to Aylingford. You will find all the history of his robberies very clearly stated in those papers, but of the history of the last few weeks, his rapid movements, his changes of character, his pretence of poor horsemanship, you will find no mention. Crosby will be able to tell you much of this. Having rescued you, Martin wanted completely to secure your safety, and believing that Rosmore's greed was far greater than his love for you, he conceived a plan which no doubt he carried out and which I hope was successful. He had carefully placed in a leather case papers containing his secret, together with the key of his tower, and full instructions of how his hiding-place was entered.

This case he intended to drop where Rosmore could see it. He believed that Rosmore would hurry to Aylingford before he made any attempt to find you. We are close to Southampton, and safe so far, so Martin's idea of Rosmore may have been a correct one."

"And Martin's money?" asked Barbara.

"Your money," Fellowes corrected. "It was moved from the Abbey some little time ago, and is hidden at 'The Jolly Farmers.' Since you must be out of England for a while, Martin thought you might like to give me instructions concerning it."

"Mad Martin," murmured Barbara.

"Mad. Yes, in one way, perhaps," said Fellowes. "That way you will not learn from those papers. He was a man, and near him you grew to be a woman. Poor Martin! He was mad enough to love you."

Barbara put her hand into Crosby's. She remembered what the highwayman had said that morning, she remembered how she had once stood in the dark pa.s.sage under Aylingford, one hand in Gilbert's, one in Martin's; two men who loved her and had braved so much for her. And then she looked at Fellowes, whose face was turned from her. He had said nothing of what he had done, but she remembered that night in the hall.

"Three men; Gilbert and Martin, yes, and you, Mr. Fellowes," she said softly, putting her other hand into his. "It was a triple alliance, and, indeed, never was woman better served."

That night Gilbert Crosby and Barbara Lanison left England, and a few weeks later were married in Holland, in which country they found their first home together. When, a little later, England rose in revolt against King James, some of the negotiations with the Prince of Orange were conducted by Crosby, and he accompanied the Prince when he landed at Torbay, receiving later a baronetcy for his services. He became of some importance at the Court of William and Mary, but his happiest hours were those spent at his manor at Lenfield. There his dreams had fulfilment. Barbara flitted from room to room, as, in his visions, she had so often seemed to do; many a time he watched her slowly descending the broad stairs and held out his arms to her.

Sometimes a shade of sorrow would rest upon her brow.

"I was thinking of Martin," she said, when her husband questioned her.

Martin had never come to Lenfield. Gilbert could find out nothing about him. There were still highwaymen on the road, but nowadays no one was ever stopped by "Galloping Hermit" in his brown mask.

"I wonder what became of him," said Barbara; but she never knew.

CHAPTER x.x.x

ALONG THE NORTH ROAD

On the North Road there is a small inn, rather dilapidated and not attractive to travellers. Its customers are yokels from the neighbouring village, but occasionally a gentleman may be found warming himself at the open hearth and drinking the best that the house contains. Such a gentleman invariably rides a good horse, and is the recipient of open-mouthed admiration from the yokels. No gentleman but a highwayman would be there, they believe.

Only one man remained in the bar to-night, a jovial fellow of the farmer type, a lover of horses by his talk, and he was wont to boast that he had made the fortune of more than one gentleman of the road by the animal he had sold him.

"Shut the door, landlord. I'll wait a bit, and have another tankard of ale. I'm expecting a visitor."

"Who may that be?"

"One you know well enough, but perhaps you haven't seen him for some time."

In a few minutes there was a sharp knock at the door, and, when the landlord opened it, there entered a man wearing a brown mask and carrying a shapeless parcel under his arm.

"'Galloping Hermit!'" exclaimed the landlord, and it was evident that he was pleased to see his visitor.

"So you got my message," said the highwayman to the farmer.

"Aye, but I doubt if I've got a horse to sell that you would care to ride. What's become o' that mare o' yourn?"

"She's in the stables--I've just put her there. I want you to take her."

"Buy her? Well, I'll look at her, but buying and selling are two different things."

"Do you suppose I'd sell her?" was the answer. "No; I want you to take her and keep her--keep her until she dies, and then bury her in the corner of some quiet field. You're honest, and will do it if you say you will; and here's gold to pay you well for your trouble. She's done her work, and the last few days have finished her. She had to help me save a woman in the West Country, and it's broken her."

"I'll do it," said the farmer. "And you'll be wanting another horse?"

"Not yet. When I do you shall hear from me. Will you take the mare to-night? If I looked at her again I do not think I could let her go."

"Aye, it's like that with horses, we know," said the sympathetic farmer.

"I'll take her to-night."

The landlord went to the stables with him, and when he returned found the highwayman standing in deep thought before the fire.

"I'm tired, friend. Is there a hole I can sleep in until daylight?"

"Of course."

"I must start at daybreak."

"What! Without a horse?"

"Yes, and without this," he said, taking off his brown mask, showing the landlord his features for the first time. "To-night 'Galloping Hermit'

ceases to exist."

He kicked the dying embers into a blaze, and dropped the mask into the fire.

"That's the end of it. Show me this sleeping hole of mine," he said, taking up his parcel from the floor. "What clothes I leave in it you may have. I shall not want them any more."

With the dawn a man came out of the inn. He looked at the sky, and up the road, and down it. Under his arm he carried a fiddle and a bow.

There fell from his lips a little cadence of notes, soft, low, not a laugh, nor yet a sigh, yet with something of content in it.

"For the love of a woman," he murmured, and then he went along the road northwards, his figure slowly lessening in the distance until it vanished over the brow of the hill which the morning sunlight had just touched.