And now for the elopement.

CHAPTER II

Mistress gossip tells of the elopement of the countess of Cressett with the old buccaneer, and of Charles dump the postillion conducting them, and of A great county family

The twenty-first of June was the day appointed by Captain Kirby to carry off Countess Fanny, and the time midnight:  and ten minutes to the stroke of twelve, Countess Fanny, as if she scorned to conceal that she was in a conspiracy with her grey-haired lover, notwithstanding that she was watched and guarded, left the Marchioness of Arpington’s ball-room and was escorted downstairs by her brother Lord Levellier, sworn to baffle Kirby.  Present with him in the street and witness to the shutting of the carriage-door on Countess Fanny, were brother officers of his, General Abrane, Colonel Jack Potts, and Sir Upton Tomber.

The door fast shut, Countess Fanny kissed her hand to them and drew up the window, seeming merry, and as they had expected indignation and perhaps resistance, for she could be a spitfire in a temper and had no fear whatever of firearms, they were glad to have her safe on such good terms; and so General Abrane jumped up on the box beside the coachman, Jack Potts jumped up between the footmen, and Sir Upton Tomber and the one-armed lord, as soon as the carriage was disengaged from the ruck two deep, walked on each side of it in the road all the way to Lord Cressett’s town house.  No one thought of asking where that silly young man was—­probably under some table.

Their numbers were swelled by quite a host going along, for heavy bets were on the affair, dozens having backed Kirby; and it must have appeared serious to them, with the lady in custody, and constables on the look-out, and Kirby and his men nowhere in sight.  They expected an onslaught at some point of the procession, and it may be believed they wished it, if only that they might see something for their money.  A beautiful bright moonlight night it happened to be.  Arm in arm among them were Lord Pitscrew and Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, a great friend of Kirby’s; for it was a device of the Old Buccaneer’s that helped the earl to win the great Welsh heiress who made him, even before he took to hoarding and buying,—­one of the wealthiest noblemen in England; but she was crazed by her marriage or the wild scenes leading to it; she never presented herself in society.  She would sit on the top of Estlemont towers—­as they formerly spelt it—­all day and half the night in midwinter, often, looking for the mountains down in her native West country, covered with an old white flannel cloak, and on her head a tall hat of her Welsh women-folk; and she died of it, leaving a son in her likeness, of whom you will hear.  Lord Fleetwood had lost none of his faith in Kirby, and went on booking bets giving him huge odds, thousands!