The duke looked suddenly chastened, not to say depressed. "The glorious Miss Ulrica," he said with an obvious effort, "would be an inestimable prize without a penny of dowry."

"That's about what she'll have if she marries you," returned Mr.

Buffkin, whose eloquence, if not exactly copious, was considerably to the point.

"Shall we drive on?" suggested Lady Ormstork. "_Au revoir_, Lord Quorn," she gushed. "Till this afternoon, then. _Au revoir_, Mr.

Gage." Not knowing Peckover's name, since the reshuffle, she discreetly left him out.

But Ulrica's parting nod was for him alone.

As the carriage rolled away up the High Street the duke was the first to speak.

"What time does that infernal train leave your unsavoury town of Great Bunbury?" he inquired.

CHAPTER XLII

Sharnbrook had called at Staplewick for an authoritative version of certain blood-curdling rumours which had reached him, and he stayed to luncheon.

"Wish I'd known you were having such a thrilling time," he said regretfully. "I'd have come up and helped. Well, I say, with this new twist of the Quorn t.i.tle our fair friends at the Moat will get a nasty shake, eh? I'm ever so grateful for the way you fellows have relieved the pressure of the fair dodgers; they've eased off wonderfully of late, and I've got my wind again."

"Glad to hear it," observed Peckover. "Always willing to oblige a sportsman."

"Ah," said Sharnbrook in a gratified tone, "if I'd only known you were having fits with that little Spanish bantam, I'd have brought along a rare good bull-dog that would have reduced him to fragments and pulp inside three minutes. A nailing beast, knows his business from A to Z and quite a picture when he's----"

"The little devil of a duke would have put a bullet through him," said Gage, "and that would have been a pity."

"Yes," Sharnbrook agreed, "that wouldn't have suited me. I've only had the beggar a month, and have just got fond of him."

"Even a Spanish bluffer has his uses," observed Gage. "He has knocked the stuffing out of Quorn's bush-ranger."

"Yes," said Quorn, "that brute has no more terrors for me; I suppose, though, I shall have him and Lalage hanging about the place till I can afford to send them back."

"Better keep the fire-irons out of the way," remarked Peckover.

"I'll send the precious pair back home for you, if you don't get the Buffkin money," said Gage magnanimously. "After all, I owe you something. I can't say I've had much fun out of your t.i.tle, and hope you'll do better with it. But it has been an experience, and I certainly shan't hanker after the peerage again."

Quorn thanked him. "Hope you'll stay on here as long as you fancy," he said.

Gage shook his head. "No thanks. I'm off to-morrow. Too much Hemyock about for me. But I'll run down later and see what you're making of it."

"What's going to become of you?" he asked Peckover. "Got anything more to sell that doesn't belong to you?"

"You can't blame me," Peckover protested. "I kept to my part of the bargain as long as you had any use for it. And I couldn't help it. If you hadn't made a bid for the t.i.tle I should have had to take it on myself."

"Right you are," responded Gage good-humouredly. "Well, you had better come with me and show me round. You can draw 300 a year as my secretary."

"I'm your man," said Peckover with alacrity. "What I don't show you won't be worth seeing."

Lady Ormstork with Mr. and Miss Buffkin was announced.

The dowager was full of gush. "Dear Lord Quorn! What an amusing incognito! Quite like the lord of Burleigh. One can quite understand your wishing to put people's real affection to the test."

"We won't inquire how the article stood it," Quorn replied bluntly.

"Quite romantic, as dear Ulrica was saying," the lady proceeded, quite unabashed. "May we, before going out, look round the picture gallery?

Mr. Buffkin would so like to see the interesting family portraits and wonderful old armour."

If Mr. Buffkin's expression was meant to be corroborative it was a distinct failure. Whatever sentiment might have been read in his commercial face, a yearning for the satisfying of an artistic curiosity was not there.

No objection to the proposal being made, the party proceeded to what Peckover called the ancestral showroom.

"Won't you look after dear Ulrica and show her round?" Lady Ormstork said pointedly to Quorn when the somewhat dreary gallery was reached.

Quorn, nothing loath, attached himself forthwith to Miss Buffkin, who had somehow gravitated to the now negligible Peckover. "Now, Mr.

Peckover," he said bluffly, "you ought to know all about these fifth of November Johnnies. Give us a bit of the showman. Take us round the effigies, and don't be too long about it."

On account, perhaps, of Miss Buffkin's obvious preference, Peckover was in higher spirits than his lot seemed to warrant.

"All right," he responded, pulling a ramrod from an ancient gun for use as a showman's wand. "Here goes! Lord Quorn, ladies and gentlemen: with a view to combining instruction with amus.e.m.e.nt, I propose to give you some points concerning these n.o.ble effigies with which the s.p.a.cious apartment is lined. True, it is only the outer crusts of these distinguished warriors and sportsmen that I am able to bring to your notice. The kernels are all gone, and the sh.e.l.ls are--hem!--left tenantless. But, as in these days the tailor makes the man, so we may say that in olden times the blacksmith made him, from which we may conclude that we have the best part," he tapped a suit of armour with his wand, "of the n.o.ble house of Quorn remaining with us to this day."

"Hear! hear!" cried Sharnbrook, with more appreciation than tact, while Miss Buffkin laughed sympathetically.

"The clockwork has long since run down," continued Peckover finding the vocabulary of his former vocation coming in usefully; "the striking gear is out of order, on account of the dust getting into it. The hands can point no longer, and the faces have lost their enamel. But we have still the cases--some plain, like this,"--he tapped a suit of plate armour--"some engine turned, like that," pointing to an inlaid suit, "some with open faces, like this yawner," he rattled his wand in the cavity of a vizorless helmet, "some hunters, like this prancer,"

indicating an equestrian portrait. "To begin at the beginning." He held up a dilapidated helmet in one hand and in the other a fragment of armour. "Sir Guy de Quorn, founder of the family."

There was a laugh from everybody, although Lady Ormstork's was rather belated, that astute dowager's sense of humour being outweighed by her concern at seeing that Ulrica was paying more attention to the flippant little showman than to the more solid worth of Lord Quorn.

"Not much of him remaining," Peckover went on. "Ladies and gentlemen of vivid powers of imagination may reconstruct in their minds from these scanty materials the n.o.ble mien, the imposing figure, of this doughty warrior. Pa.s.s on to Sir Nicholas de Quorn," he pointed to the suit of armour that stood next, "in a high state of preservation. A mighty man of valour, who had the advantage of living in times when he could knock a man out for sneezing in his presence without being liable to forty shillings or a month. Sir Nicholas spent a useful life in trying his muscle and weight on other people, and was getting his name up nicely, when unfortunately setting out to attack the castle of an absent neighbour in a thunderstorm, his lance acted as a lightning conductor, and he was prematurely cremated. Notice the aperture through which the electric fluid tunnelled its way to his knightly vitals, and the look of blank astonishment with a dash of 'uffiness on the champion's visage."

The said visage being indeed a blank, this fancy seemed to tickle even the unimaginative Mr. Buffkin. Peckover now directed attention to a weird-looking portrait. "Sir Penning de Quorn, surnamed the f.e.c.kless.

He never did anything distinguished, and only escaped being made Commander-in-Chief through one of the Royal Family fancying himself in a c.o.c.ked hat." He pa.s.sed to another canvas. "Sir Brian de Quorn--sometimes called the Buffer, as nothing made any impression on him. He married four wives, three of whom survived him."

Sharnbrook guffawed, and Lady Ormstork looked scandalized.

"Sir Walter the Willing," proceeded Peckover, working up the showman business, as he pointed to the next portrait, "a distinguished advertising politician. He pushed his way to the front and became a Cabinet Minister by his imitations of popular jesters, and by dyeing his raven locks crimson with a secret wash which he purchased from a bald Crusader who had no further use for it. When at length the supply failed and the subst.i.tutes he tried to manufacture turned his hair green, and by their offensive odour left him alone on the Treasury Bench he was soon sent to the Upper House, becoming first Baron Quorn."

Mr. Buffkin, for an out-of-place, commercial Philistine seemed, to Peckover's gratification, to be taking in the lecture with genuine amus.e.m.e.nt.

Thus stimulated, the showman proceeded, "Harboro' de Quorn," he tapped a sporting portrait, "second Baron Quorn, and inventor of the Quorn Hunt. He induced the n.o.ble Normans to abandon the shooting of foxes which they consented to, owing to gunpowder being in its infancy, guns taking a quarter of an hour to load and fire, and the wily animal being hard to hit with a bow and arrow. He was the first M.F.H., and having an impediment in his speech he originated the expression, Yoicks!

which, being interpreted, was his bovrilized way of cursing people who rode over the hounds."

"Good man," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Sharnbrook.

Peckover, encouraged by Ulrica's animated interest, went on with his lecture in spite of Lady Ormstork's obvious impatience. His next object was a big suit of armour on which he irreverently rattled his wand. "We now come to the third Baron, Marmaduke, surnamed the Masher.

His fatal gift of beauty was the cause of some anxiety--to the married n.o.bility, clergy and gentry of his acquaintance. He was, as you will observe, very particular about the cut of his armour and the shape of his helmet, which was constructed with an extra-size pigeon-hole, in order that the full extent of his handsome physiognomy might be utilized to dazzle the doting damsels. His end, ladies and gentlemen, was, I regret to say, a somewhat melancholy and unusual one. While drinking a stirrup-cup, and trying at the same time to wink over the brim of the goblet at the young lady behind the bar, a portion of the pick-me-up went down the wrong way; to correct which mistake his faithful squire seized a spade and smote him therewith on the back.

The clang of the blow on his armour startled his horse, which took to bucking, and at the first attempt laid the coughing n.o.bleman in the ditch. He never wunk again. Notice the rectangular impression of the shovel between the shoulders, also the extra-sized sliding kissing-trap of the helmet so contrived for the purpose of simplifying the process of osculation to which he was addicted."