The Panchronicon Part 40

"Well, there now! That settles that! I guess if anybody wrote Shakespeare, it wasn't Bacon!"

The astonishment--almost alarm--in her companion's face filled her with amus.e.m.e.nt, and her happy laugh rang through the echoing halls.

"Many, many gracious thanks, good Master Bacon!" she exclaimed. "Right well have you earned your honorarium. And now, ere you depart, may I make bold to urge one last request?"

With a bow the young man expressed his acquiescence.

"If I mistake not, you will return forthwith to Master Droop, to the end that you may regain your proper garb, will you not?"

"That is my intention."

"Then I pray you, good Master Bacon, deliver this message to Master Droop from one Phoebe Wise, an acquaintance of his whom I know well.

Tell him he must have all in readiness for flight and must not leave his abode until she come. May I rely on your faithful repet.i.tion of this to him?"

"a.s.suredly. I shall forget no word of the message wherewith I am so honored."

"Tell him that it is a matter of life and death, sir--of life and death!"

She held out her hand. Bacon pressed his lips to the dainty fingers and then, jamming the hard Derby hat as far down over his long locks as possible, he stepped forth once more into the courtyard.

CHAPTER X

HOW THE QUEEN READ HER NEWSPAPER

For Rebecca, left alone in the goldsmiths' city house, the past night and day had been a period of perplexity. She had been saved from any serious anxiety by the arrival of a messenger soon after Phoebe's departure, who had brought her word that her "mistress" was safe in the Peac.o.c.k Inn, and had left a verbal message commanding her to come with him at once to rejoin her.

This command she naturally refused to comply with, and sent word to the much-puzzled man-servant that she wasn't to be "bossed around" by her younger sister, and that if Phoebe wanted to see her she knew where to find her. This message was delivered to old Mistress Burton, who refrained from repeating it to her step-daughter. For her own ends, she thought it best to keep Mistress Mary from her nurse, whose influence seemed invariably opposed to her own.

Left thus alone, Rebecca had had a hitherto unequalled opportunity for reflection, and the result of her deliberations was most practical.

Whatever might be said of the inhabitants of London in general, it was clear to her mind that poor Phoebe was mentally unbalanced.

The only remedy was to lure her into the Panchronicon, and regain the distant home they ought never to have left.

The first step to be taken was therefore to rejoin Copernicus and see that all was in readiness. It was her intention then to seek her sister and, by humoring her delusion and exercising an appropriately benevolent cunning, to induce her to enter the conveyance which had brought them both into this disastrous complication. The latter part of this programme was not definitely formed in her mind, and when she sought to give it shape she found herself appalled both by its difficulties and by the probable twists that her conscience would have to undergo in putting her plan into practice.

"Well, well!" she exclaimed at length. "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. The fust thing is to find Copernicus Droop."

It was at about eleven o'clock in the morning of the day after Phoebe's departure that Rebecca came to this audible conclusion, and she arose at once to don her jacket and bonnet. This accomplished, she gathered up her precious satchel and umbrella and approached her bed-room window to observe the weather.

She had scarcely fixed her eyes upon the muddy streets below her when she uttered a cry of amazement.

"Good gracious alive! Ef there ain't Copernicus right this minute!"

Out through the inner hall and down the stairs she hurried with short, shuffling steps, impatient of the clinging rushes on the floor.

Speechless she ran past good Mistress Goldsmith, who called after her in vain. The only reply was the slam of the front door.

Once in the street, Rebecca glanced sharply up and down. The man she sought was not in sight, but she shrewdly counted upon his having turned into Leadenhall Street, toward which she had seen him walking. Thither she hurried, and to her infinite gratification she saw, about a hundred yards ahead, the unmistakable trousers, coat, and Derby hat so familiar on the person of Copernicus Droop.

"Hey!" she cried. "Hey, there, Mister Droop! Copernicus Droop!"

She ended with a shrill, far-carrying, long-drawn call that sounded much like a "whoop." Evidently he heard her, for he started, looked over his shoulder, and then set off with redoubled speed, as though anxious to avoid her.

She stopped short for a moment, paralyzed with astonishment.

"Well!" she exclaimed. "If I ever! I suppose it's a case of 'the wicked flee,' but he can't get away from me as easy's that."

And then began a race the like of which was never seen before. In advance, Francis Bacon scurried forward as fast as he dared without running, dreading the added publicity his rapid progress was sure to bring upon him, yet dreading even more to be overtaken by this amazing female apparition, in whose accents and intonation he recognized another of the Droop species.

Behind Bacon came Rebecca, conspicuous enough in her prim New England gown and bonneted head, but doubly remarkable as she skipped from stone to stone to avoid the mud and filth of the unpaved streets, and swinging in one hand her little black satchel and in the other her faithful umbrella.

From time to time she called aloud: "Hey, stop there! Copernicus Droop!

Stop, I say! It's only Rebecca Wise!"

The race would have been a short one, indeed, had she not found it impossible to ignore the puddles, rubbish heaps, and other obstacles which half-filled the streets and obstructed her path at every turn.

Bacon, who was accustomed to these conditions and had no impeding skirts to check him, managed, therefore, to hold his own without actually running.

These two were not long left to themselves. Such a progress could not take place in the heart of England's capital without forming in its train an ever-growing suite of the idle and curious. Ere long a rabble of street-walkers, beggars, pick-pockets, and loafers were stamping behind Rebecca, repeating her shrill appeals with coa.r.s.e variations, and a.s.sailing her with jokes which, fortunately for her, were worded in terms which her New England ears could not comprehend.

In this order the two strangely clad beings hurried down toward the Thames; he in the hope of finding a waterman who should carry him beyond the reach of his dreaded persecutors; she counting upon the river, which she knew to lie somewhere ahead, to check the supposed Copernicus in his obstinate flight.

To the right they turned, through St. Clement's Lane into Crooked Lane, and the ever-growing mob clattered noisily after them, shouting and laughing a gleeful chorus to her occasional solo.

Leaving Eastcheap and its grimy tenements, they emerged from New Fish Street and saw the gleam of the river ahead of them.

At this moment one of the following crowd, more enterprising than his fellows, ran close up behind Rebecca and, clutching the edge of her jacket, sought to restrain her.

"Toll, la.s.s, toll!" he shouted. "Who gave thee leave to run races in London streets?"

Rebecca became suddenly fully conscious for the first time of the sensation she had created. Stopping short, she swung herself free and looked her bold a.s.sailant fairly in the face.

"Well, young feller," she said, with icy dignity, "what can I do fer you?"

The loafer fell back as she turned, and when she had spoken, he turned in mock alarm and fled, crying as he ran:

"Save us--save us! Ugly and old as a witch, I trow!"

Those in the background caught his final words and set up a new cry which boded Rebecca no good.

"A witch--a witch! Seize her! Stone her!"

As they now hung back momentarily in a new dread, self-created in their superst.i.tious minds, Rebecca turned again to the chase, but was sorely put out to find that her pause had given the supposed Droop the advantage of a considerable gain. He was now not far from the river side. Hoping he could go no farther, she set off once more in pursuit, observing silence in order to save her breath.

She would apparently have need of it to save herself, for the stragglers in her wake were now impelled by a more dangerous motive than mere curiosity or mischief. The cry of "Witch" had awakened cruel depths in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and they pressed forward in close ranks with less noise and greater menace than before.

Two or three rough fellows paused to kick stones loose from the clay of the streets, and in a few moments the all-unconscious Rebecca would have found herself in a really terrible predicament but for an accident seemingly without bearing upon her circ.u.mstances.