United States or Madagascar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I will send at once for some decent woman in the town who shall be your maid for the present, and Mistress Lanison shall have someone to wait on her in your place. I cannot have the lady who is to be my wife stooping even to serve Mistress Lanison. Rosmores ever looked eye to eye with their fellows, and long ancestry and loyalty have given them privileges even in the presence of the King.
Perhaps you had better tell me where you are to be found during the next three days. Women are sometimes as changeful as a gusty wind, and Mistress Lanison might alter her decision." Although astonished at being set at liberty at once, Crosby was not so off his guard as to mention "The Anchor" in West Street. He gave the address of Fellowes' lodging.
What was it Barbara Lanison had heard of him which had evidently impressed her unfavourably, although it was perhaps against her will, and who had told her these things? Then, too, this fiddler must be made to speak clearly, for he must surely know a great deal. Martin Fairley quickly returned, and closed and locked the door. "There must be some explanation between us," said Crosby.
To be the wife of a notorious highwayman would not appeal to many women; most women would prefer to be Lady Rosmore, whatever the drawbacks to such a position might be. Mistress Lanison will go her own way, and I should be more than human if I did not hope that she may live to regret it. There is no trickery, and no condition except that you leave Dorchester together.
They were to escape together. She and Galloping Hermit, the notorious wearer of the brown mask, were to go together! He was a man, a true man, she had said it, she meant it, but Ah, strive to forget them as she would, Rosmore's words had left a sting behind them. For all he was a man, he was a highwayman, and she was Barbara Lanison, of Aylingford Abbey!
Although you do not ask for any reward, you get one five hundred or a thousand guineas, the exact amount we can decide, but at any rate a goodly sum for two scraps of paper. I should advise you to close with such an offer." "Still the jest does not appeal to me." "No?" "You want Mistress Lanison " "Released," Rosmore interrupted sharply. "She shall be, but in my own fashion."
Some few months ago Sir John Lanison, of Aylingford Abbey in Hampshire, Lady Bolsover's brother and Barbara's uncle and sole guardian since the death of her parents, had suggested that his sister should take charge of his ward for a little while. Practically she knew nothing of London, he said, and it was time she did.
Many changes were imminent, and Lady Bolsover was waiting to see in which direction the wind blew. Her nature, perhaps, was to hate Puritans and all their ways, but, if necessary to her own well-being, she would easily be able to love them and curse all Catholics. She was not really bad at heart, but she was a strange companion for Barbara Lanison.
Even her uncle laughed and seemed to agree when Heriot declared that a woman who was shy in her love affairs was always the most dangerous, and suggested that Mrs. Dearmer must look to her laurels now that Mistress Lanison had taken the field against her.
You must not forget that he is half a madman, and sometimes talks wildly." Crosby told her the manner of his escape from Lenfield, as he had told it to Fairley; and if Barbara Lanison did not so obviously disbelieve it as the fiddler had done, her eyes were full of questioning. He explained how "The Jolly Farmers" had been searched, and how he and Martin had ridden away together in the night.
Word Of The Day